Dolphin
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85 free Dolphin trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
61 free dolphin trivia questions with answers. Dive into the world of dolphins with our engaging trivia quiz! Test your knowledge about these remarkable marine mammals, their intelligence, behavior, and habitat. Whether you're a marine biology enthusiast or just curious about dolphins, this quiz will entertain and educate you.
30 of 85 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which competitive swimming stroke is powered by the 'dolphin kick', with both legs beating up and down together?
Butterfly
Butterfly swimmers whip both legs together in a wave modelled on a dolphin's tail; the kick is so effective underwater that racing rules make swimmers surface within 15 metres of each start and turn.
Q 02For what primary purposes do dolphins use echolocation?
Navigation and hunting
Navigation and hunting both depend on it: a dolphin sends out rapid clicks and reads the echoes, so it can find its way and track prey in dark or murky water where eyes are little use.
Q 03A dolphin's blowhole is the evolutionary counterpart of which human feature?
The nostrils
The nostrils of dolphins' land-dwelling ancestors moved back along the skull over millions of years to become the blowhole, which lets a dolphin breathe while barely breaking the surface.
Q 04In a landmark mirror test, what did bottlenose dolphins do after researchers marked their bodies with dye?
Twisted to inspect themselves
Twisted to inspect themselves: both dolphins swam to the mirror and turned the marked part of the body toward it, a sign of self-recognition shown before only by humans and great apes.
Q 05Which lifelong mark of birth, familiar from the human body, does every dolphin carry on its underside?
A belly button
A belly button marks the spot where the umbilical cord snapped at birth; like every mammal nourished through a placenta, a dolphin keeps the scar for life.
Q 06In the US Navy, sailors who earn their 'dolphins' have qualified to serve aboard what?
Submarines
Submarines: the badge shows a submarine's bow flanked by two dolphins, and a sailor wins it only after about a year spent learning every system on the boat.
Q 07How do dolphins usually eat a fish?
Swallow it whole
Swallow it whole, and head first, so the fish's spines lie flat instead of catching in the throat; the teeth are there only to grip slippery prey.
Q 08A dolphin's smooth skin is most often said to feel like which material?
Rubber
Rubber is the usual comparison: the skin is smooth and free of sweat glands, and its sleekness helps a dolphin slip through the water with less drag.
Q 09How does a dolphin manage to sleep without drowning?
Half its brain stays awake
Half its brain stays awake while the other half sleeps, along with the opposite eye; the alert side watches for danger and tells the dolphin when to surface for air.
Q 10Dolphins killed for meat at Taiji, Japan are caught by what method?
Drive hunting
Drive hunting means boats herd dolphins into a bay and shut the way back to sea with nets; Taiji is the only town in Japan still doing it on a large scale, and the Faroe and Solomon Islands run drives too.
Q 11Dolphins, whales and porpoises together make up which group?
Cetacea
Cetacea comes from the Greek ketos, a whale or sea monster; every member is a mammal whose ancestors walked on land before returning to the water some 50 million years ago.
Q 12What name is given to the low leaps that travelling dolphins make to save energy?
Porpoising
Porpoising, a run of low leaps made at speed, uses less energy than swimming fast at the surface because air drags far less than water; a dolphin moving quickly enough simply breaks free with each stroke.
Q 13Unlike most other mammals, dolphins are usually born in what way?
Tail first
Tail first is the usual way, though head-first births are also seen; the calf arrives underwater, and a second dolphin, nicknamed an 'auntie', sometimes stays close to mother and newborn.
Q 21What shape are the teeth of most dolphin species?
Conical and pointed
Conical and pointed teeth interlock to hold slippery prey; porpoises, often mistaken for dolphins, have spade-shaped teeth instead.
Q 22How often do dolphins typically renew their outer skin layer?
Every few hours
Dolphins have a remarkably rapid skin renewal process, shedding and replacing their outer skin layer approximately every 2 to 3 hours. This helps maintain their smooth surface for efficient swimming and protects against microorganisms.
Q 23The orca and pilot whales belong to a group of dolphins known by which collective nickname?
Blackfish
'Blackfish' is the old nickname for the orca, the pilot whales and a few dark-bodied relatives; pilot whales often beach themselves in whole groups, perhaps because their social bonds are so strong.
Q 14Which land animal is the closest living relative of dolphins?
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus is dolphins' closest living relative, though it looks more like a pig: DNA studies group hippos and whales together as Whippomorpha, which split from a common ancestor over 50 million years ago.
Q 15The 'wholphin' at Sea Life Park is a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and which species?
False killer whale
Kekaimalu, born at Sea Life Park in 1985, had a false killer whale father and a bottlenose mother; she later produced calves of her own, and wild wholphins have also been reported.
Q 16Which cooperative hunting method involves dolphins driving fish onto the shore to catch them?
Strand feeding
Strand feeding is seen in bottlenose dolphins of South Carolina and Georgia: they drive fish onto mudbanks, briefly beach themselves to grab them, then slide back into the water.
Q 17In Shark Bay, Australia, what do bottlenose dolphins wear on their snouts while rooting through the seabed?
Sea sponges
The habit is passed mostly from mothers to daughters, one of the clearest cases of culture and tool use outside primates.
Q 18Spinner dolphins do most of their hunting when?
After dark
After dark, the small fish and squid they eat rise from the depths toward the surface, so spinner dolphins head offshore at night to meet them and return to shallow bays to rest.
Q 19Which dolphin sound is used mainly for individual identification and long-distance communication?
Whistles
A signature whistle works like a name: it forms in the first year of life and stays the same for life, and dolphins have recognised the whistles of old companions after 20 years apart.
Q 20Which sense is largely absent in dolphins, unlike most land animals?
Smell
Dolphins have almost no sense of smell: their brains lack olfactory lobes and nerves entirely, so they rely on hearing and echolocation instead.
Q 24Which of these is the smallest dolphin species?
Hector's Dolphin
Hector's dolphin is the smallest of these, with adults only about 1.2 to 1.6 metres long; it keeps to shallow coastal water, which puts it in the path of fishing nets, its main threat.
Q 25What is a major natural predator of dolphins?
Great White Shark
The great white shark is one of a few large sharks, with bull, tiger and dusky sharks, that prey on dolphins, mostly the young; healed shark-bite scars are common on wild bottlenose dolphins.
Q 26What type of social structure do many dolphin species exhibit?
Fission-fusion societies
Groups merge and split several times a day, and where food is plentiful they can swell into a superpod of over 1,000 animals.
Q 27In one Greek myth, which god set a dolphin among the stars for persuading Amphitrite to marry him?
Poseidon
Poseidon sent a dolphin after the sea nymph Amphitrite, who had fled his advances; when it coaxed her back to marry him, he placed its image in the sky as the constellation Delphinus.
Q 28What is the primary purpose of a dolphin's pectoral fins?
Steering and braking
Steering and braking are the flippers' job, with the tail supplying the thrust; inside each flipper are the same forelimb bones found in land mammals, shortened into a paddle.
Q 29What is the common name for the dolphin family Delphinidae?
Oceanic Dolphins
Oceanic dolphins, the family Delphinidae, take in most dolphin species, from the orca down; the river dolphins belong to separate families and do not form one natural group.
Q 30The baiji, declared functionally extinct after a 2006 survey found none, lived in which river?
Yangtze
Yangtze fishermen regarded the baiji, nicknamed the 'Goddess of the Yangtze', as a protector; as the river grew crowded and polluted its numbers collapsed, and a six-week search in 2006 found none.