Chipmunks
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50 free Chipmunks trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Chipmunks are the striped, pocket-sized squirrels that dart across trails, woodpiles and picnic tables all over North America. They are easy to love and surprisingly easy to get wrong: plenty of people cannot say where the animals go in winter, how they carry so much in one trip, or which of the cartoon chipmunks is which. This quiz gathers the fun facts worth knowing. It covers cheek pouches and burrow design, what chipmunks eat, the noises they make, the different species and where each one lives, and how the word chipmunk came into English. A handful of questions turn to the famous cartoon chipmunks and the stories behind their names. The questions are pitched for curious kids and adults alike, so the quiz works for a classroom, a family game night or a camping trip. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Disney's cartoon chipmunks Chip and Dale take their names from a pun on a famous maker of what?
Furniture
Furniture is the joke: animator Bill Justice first drew the pair, who were named after the furniture designer Thomas Chippendale.
Q 02All but one species of chipmunk are native to North America; the odd one out comes from which continent?
Asia
Asia is home to the Siberian chipmunk, found from Russia across China to northern Japan. It is the only one of the 25 species found outside North America.
Q 03When a chipmunk's cheek pouches are stuffed full, they can swell to nearly the size of which body part?
Its head
Its head is the measure: the pouches sit between jaw and cheek and work like shopping bags, hauling seeds and nuts back to the burrow.
Q 04The singing brothers of Alvin and the Chipmunks were named after executives at which kind of company?
A record label
A record label supplied the names: creator Ross Bagdasarian borrowed them from his bosses at Liberty, the company that released the trio's first hit.
Q 05In the Chipmunks' chart-topping Christmas song of 1958, Alvin keeps wishing for which toy craze of that year?
A hula hoop
A hula hoop was 1958's hot new toy, so Alvin's wish dated the tune at once. The single still spent four weeks at number one.
Q 06Disney's Chip and Dale made their 1943 debut squabbling with which character over stashing nuts in a cannon?
Pluto
Pluto met the pair in the short Private Pluto, set on a military base, where the two chipmunks only squeaked and chattered without words.
Q 07Chipmunks do not fatten up for winter the way bears do; how do they get through the cold months instead?
Eating stored food
Eating stored food is the plan: a chipmunk wakes every so often to snack from the nuts and seeds it hoarded in its burrow during autumn.
Q 08Chipmunks now live wild in parks in France and Italy, mostly after being imported in the 1960s as what?
Household pets
Household pets is the answer: more than 200,000 chipmunks were shipped to Europe between 1960 and 1980, and escaped or unwanted animals founded wild colonies.
Q 09Chipmunks are best known for hoarding seeds and nuts, but which feeding group do they belong to?
Omnivores
Omnivores eat both plants and animals, and chipmunks will even take eggs and newly hatched chicks from nests when they get the chance.
Q 10The golden-mantled ground squirrel looks much like a chipmunk but lacks the stripes a chipmunk has on which body part?
Its face
Its face gives it away: a chipmunk has dark and light stripes running past its eyes, while the bigger golden-mantled ground squirrel has none there.
Q 11Chipmunks belong to which order of mammals, named for gnawing front teeth that never stop growing?
Rodents
Rodents get their name from the Latin for gnawing, and a chipmunk must keep chewing to wear down incisors that would otherwise just keep lengthening.
Q 12Born blind and hairless in an underground nest, a baby chipmunk is known by which name?
A pup
A pup is the usual word, and it grows fast: young chipmunks first venture out of the burrow at about six weeks old.
Q 13Outside the mating season, an adult eastern chipmunk defending its burrow prefers to live in which way?
On its own
On its own is the rule: eastern chipmunks meet only to court and mate, a solitary streak one scientist ranked among their most characteristic traits.
Q 21Chipmunks belong to a tribe of the squirrel family named after which far heavier burrowing cousins?
Marmots
Marmots give the tribe Marmotini its name, and the heaviest can top 8 kg, while most chipmunks weigh well under 150 grams.
Q 22The eastern chipmunk's genus name Tamias, a nod to its hoarding habit, is Greek for which kind of worker?
A steward
A steward, treasurer or housekeeper is what the Greek tamias means, so the full name Tamias striatus works out as the striped steward.
Q 23The big food hoard a chipmunk piles up in one burrow chamber is known by the name of which old-fashioned room?
A larder
A larder is one big stockpile kept in a single place, the opposite of scatter hoarding, where an animal hides each item in a different spot.
Q 14In Alvin and the Chipmunks, the three brothers are raised by a long-suffering songwriter with which first name?
Dave
Dave is the adoptive father, manager and caretaker of the trio, a kindly man who is forever losing his patience with their mischief.
Q 15In which 1989 Disney television series do Chip and Dale run a detective agency with two mice and a fly?
Rescue Rangers
Rescue Rangers recast the troublemaking pair as crime fighters, joined by an inventor mouse, a burly Australian mouse and a tiny green fly.
Q 16Chipmunks help forests by digging up and spreading the spores of which prized fungi that fruit underground?
Truffles
Truffles cannot scatter spores on the wind, so they depend on animals such as chipmunks to dig them up, eat them and carry the spores elsewhere.
Q 17The word chipmunk probably comes from a word in which Native American language of the Great Lakes region?
Ojibwe
Ojibwe has the word ajidamoo for a squirrel, and early English spellings such as chitmunk show how the borrowed sound drifted.
Q 18In the 1830s chipmunks were known as chip squirrels, a name that probably referred to what about them?
Their call
Their call is a sharp, repeated chip, one of five sounds in the eastern chipmunk's repertoire along with chucks, trills, squeals and chatter.
Q 19Palmer's chipmunk lives only in the Spring Mountains, where its forest is shrinking as which desert city sprawls?
Las Vegas
Las Vegas spreads out beside the Spring Mountains, the only home of this endangered chipmunk, which keeps to cool forest above 7,000 feet.
Q 20The alpine chipmunk lives only in the high country of which California mountain range, from Yosemite southward?
Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada peaks are its whole world: the alpine chipmunk rarely strays below 8,200 feet and escapes summer heat deep in boulder crevices.
Q 24Least chipmunks mark a patch they have stripped of seeds, then never return; what do they mark it with?
Urine
Urine acts as a 'nothing left here' sign, sparing these busy foragers a wasted trip to a spot they have already cleaned out.
Q 25The least chipmunk, the most widespread in North America, owes its name to which distinction among chipmunks?
Smallest
Smallest it is: an adult can weigh as little as 25 grams, under one ounce, yet the species ranges from Yukon across to Michigan.
Q 26Buller's chipmunk and the Durango chipmunk are both found in the wild in only which country?
Mexico
Mexico marks the southern limit of chipmunk country, and these two mountain species live nowhere else on Earth.
Q 27The agile cliff chipmunk is often spotted scaling the rock walls of which famous Arizona landmark?
Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon cliffs are a favourite haunt of this sure-footed climber, which lives on juniper berries, pine seeds and acorns.
Q 28Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian took his stage surname from which Spanish city where he was once stationed?
Seville
Seville charmed him while he was posted there, so he borrowed the city's name for the persona behind his novelty hits.
Q 29In Disney's 1989 detective cartoon, Chip's fedora and leather jacket came from a character modelled on which film hero?
Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones inspired Kit Colby, a mouse hero dropped from the first draft; his outfit went to Chip, while Dale got a loud Hawaiian shirt.
Q 30A chipmunk's shrill, repeated alarm chirp is easily mistaken for the voice of which other kind of animal?
A bird
A bird is what most listeners assume, yet the chirp is a chipmunk warning of a threat, and females are thought to use it to attract mates too.