Dall Sheep
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free Dall Sheep trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dall sheep spend their lives on some of the steepest, coldest ground in North America, and almost everything about them is built for it, from the winter coat to the horns that record every year a ram has survived. They are also among the easiest big wild animals to watch in Alaska, which is why so many visitors come home with questions about them. This quiz turns the best Dall sheep fun facts into questions. It covers how rams and ewes live, what the horns are made of and why males crash them together, how lambs get through their first weeks, what the sheep eat when winter strips the ridges bare, and the naturalists, hunters and parks tied to their story. It suits wildlife watchers planning a trip north, students working on an animal report, and anyone who enjoys a good nature quiz. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish knowing more than when you started.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Alaskan national park was created in 1917 chiefly to protect Dall sheep from overhunting?
Denali
Denali opened as Mount McKinley National Park, and its Dall sheep are still among the few in North America that go unhunted by people yet live beside a full cast of big predators.
Q 02William Healey Dall, namesake of the Dall sheep, also gave his name to which sea mammal?
Porpoise
Porpoise and sheep each honour a naturalist who was among the first scientists to explore interior Alaska, and Dall's is the largest member of its family.
Q 03Unlike the antlers of a moose, what is true of the horns on a Dall sheep ram?
They are never shed
They are never shed: a horn is slow-growing, permanent bone under a hard sheath, so a ram carries the same pair for life and simply adds to it each summer.
Q 04Dall sheep start growing horns at about two months old, but which of the animals carry them?
Both sexes
Both sexes carry horns, but a ewe's stay short, slender and only slightly curved, which is why a young ram looks just like a ewe until he is about three.
Q 05What do Dall sheep travel many miles each spring to eat at sites known as mineral licks?
Soil
Soil at these rocky outcrops is loaded with minerals that a diet of plants cannot supply, and several groups of sheep may meet and mingle at a single lick.
Q 06Dall sheep rams crash horns all year round, not just in the rut, so what are the clashes for?
To settle social rank
To settle social rank, not to win a ewe: once the order is fixed, largely by horn size, rams can live side by side with few injuries.
Q 07Which hoofed Alaskan animal, fond of wetter country, is sometimes mistaken for the Dall sheep?
Mountain goat
Mountain goat coats are just as pale, but the horns are slim, black and dagger-like, and none of Alaska's damp south-eastern panhandle holds a single Dall sheep.
Q 08Ancestors of the Dall sheep walked from Siberia to North America by which now-drowned route?
The Bering land bridge
The Bering land bridge let wild sheep cross during the Pleistocene, and their nearest Asian kin, the snow sheep, still roam the mountains of north-east Siberia.
Q 09Stone sheep are slate grey-brown, but what colour is their northern cousin, the Dall sheep?
White
White or creamy all over, the Dall sheep is the northernmost wild sheep in North America, and its winter coat can grow more than two inches thick.
Q 10The tough outer sheath of a Dall sheep's horn is made of which protein, also found in fingernails?
Keratin
Keratin wraps a living core, and on a mature Dall sheep ram the finished horns can account for almost a tenth of his body weight.
Q 11Counted like tree rings to age a Dall sheep, the yearly growth marks on its horns are called what?
Annuli
Annuli form because horn growth stalls each winter, leaving a thin dark ring; on rams past eight, though, the tips wear away faster than the base adds new horn.
Q 12Seen from the side, the horns of a mature 'full curl' Dall sheep ram trace which shape?
A circle
A circle takes a ram seven or eight years to complete, and it is the usual yardstick for whether sport hunters may legally take him.
Q 13Which bird of prey is a known hunter of newborn Dall sheep lambs on Alaska's high ridges?
Golden eagle
Golden eagle attacks help make a lamb's first weeks the riskiest of its life: most early deaths come in the first 30 to 45 days.
Q 21Like cattle, Dall sheep wring nutrients from rough alpine plants by which digestive habit?
Chewing the cud
Chewing the cud means bringing a meal back up from a four-chambered stomach for a second grind, which lets wild sheep live on poor, tough forage.
Q 22Before snowmobiles, how did Inupiat hunters travel to reach Dall sheep in the depths of winter?
By dog sled
By dog sled in winter and on foot in summer: even now the ground is so rough that the last stretch of any hunt has to be walked.
Q 23What are Dall sheep groups called in which one or two ewes mind the lambs while the rest feed?
Nurseries
Nurseries, or nursery groups, let most mothers graze in peace, and the lambs in them are lively from the start, playing among themselves.
Q 14Besides the Dall sheep, which is the only other wild sheep species native to North America?
Bighorn
Bighorn sheep took the south, from the Canadian Rockies down to Mexico, while Dall sheep kept to Alaska and the far north-west of the continent.
Q 15Where does a Dall sheep ewe go to give birth, staying a few days until her lamb can travel?
Rugged cliffs
Rugged cliffs keep predators at bay while the single lamb finds its feet; it can stand within about half an hour of being born.
Q 16The long, stiff guard hairs of a Dall sheep's winter coat share which heat-trapping feature?
They are hollow
They are hollow, so each one holds a core of still air, and they lie over an undercoat of fine wool.
Q 17Dall sheep are often spotted on crags above the Seward Highway, just south of which Alaskan city?
Anchorage
Anchorage drivers pass a pull-out called Windy Corner, at mile 106, where the sheep are often in plain view just up the hill.
Q 18Inupiat hunters have long turned to Dall sheep for meat and clothing when which animal is scarce?
Caribou
Caribou herds shrank sharply in the 1940s, which made Dall sheep a key harvest, and the sheep still fill the gap when the herds change their winter routes.
Q 19Why do Dall sheep spend winter on exposed, blustery ridges instead of down in sheltered valleys?
Wind clears snow off food
Wind clears snow off food such as dry, frozen grass and sedge stems, yet in a hard winter an adult can still lose a sixth of its body weight.
Q 20A Dall sheep appears on the back of which US coin, issued in 2012 to honour an Alaskan park?
Quarter
Quarter number 15 in the America the Beautiful series, the coin was released by the US Mint late in 2012 with the sheep on its reverse.
Q 24A park to protect Dall sheep was first proposed to a club co-founded by which US president?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt helped found the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887, and a fellow member pitched the Alaskan sheep sanctuary to the club years before any bill reached Congress.
Q 25Dall sheep rams and ewes live apart for most of the year, mixing for the rut in which months?
November and December
November and December bring the two groups together; a ram can father lambs at 18 months but seldom gets the chance until his horns reach full curl.
Q 26Stone sheep, darker cousins of the Dall sheep, live mainly in the north of which Canadian province?
British Columbia
British Columbia holds most of the world's Stone sheep, which often come down to lick minerals at the roadside along the Alaska Highway.
Q 27Sheep Mountain, a well-known place to watch Dall sheep, lies in which Canadian national park?
Kluane
Kluane also holds Mount Logan, the highest peak in Canada, and mountains and glaciers cover more than four-fifths of the park.
Q 28Dall sheep viewing platforms ring the old mining town of Faro in which part of Canada?
Yukon
Yukon mining once sustained Faro; as that industry declined, the town turned to wildlife tourism and built its lookouts.
Q 29What lets a Dall sheep ram walk away unhurt from a full-speed, head-on collision?
A double-layered skull
A double-layered skull and thick facial skin soak up the blow when two rams back off ten metres or so and charge; the crack can carry a kilometre.
Q 30Dall sheep could suffer mass die-offs from disease if which animals shared their ranges?
Farm livestock
Farm livestock can carry infections that wild mountain sheep are extremely vulnerable to, so letting flocks graze beside wild herds risks an epidemic.