This donkey trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the humble ass from every angle: the biology (why a mule has 63 chromosomes, how far a bray carries, what the cross on a donkey's back means), the history (Egyptian pharaohs buried with donkeys, Washington's mules, the twenty-mule borax teams), and the famous donkeys of books, films and scripture, from Balaam's talking ass and Bottom's transformed head to Eeyore, Platero and Shrek's chattering sidekick. It suits animal lovers, farm and 4-H groups, pub quiz hosts looking for an unusual round, and kids who simply like donkeys. Roughly a third of the questions are easy, and the rest climb through medium to a few genuinely hard ones about wild asses and Bronze Age hybrids. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic or primary source, so the facts hold up whether you are hosting a quiz or settling an argument at the petting zoo.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is an adult male donkey called?
A jack
A female is a jenny or jennet, and a youngster of either sex is a foal.
Q 02Which animal is the direct ancestor of the domestic donkey?
The African wild ass
Its scientific name is either Equus africanus asinus or simply Equus asinus, depending on the taxonomist.
Q 03On which continent was the donkey first domesticated?
Africa
Pastoral people in Nubia probably tamed it 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, and it replaced the ox as their pack animal.
Q 04A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and what?
A female horse
The reverse cross, a stallion with a jenny, produces the rarer hinny.
Q 05What is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey called?
A hinny
Hinnies are usually smaller than mules, with shorter ears and a tasselled tail like their donkey mother.
Q 06How many chromosomes does a donkey have?
62
A horse has 64, so their mule offspring get an odd 63 and are almost always infertile.
Q 07Roughly how long is a jenny's pregnancy?
About 12 months
Twins occur in under two percent of donkey pregnancies, and both survive in only about one case in seven.
Q 08Roughly how far can a donkey's bray be heard?
Over 3 kilometres
A bray typically lasts twenty seconds and helps solitary desert donkeys keep in touch.
Q 09What distinctive marking do most donkeys carry on their backs?
A cross
It is formed by primitive dorsal and shoulder stripes inherited from the wild ass.
Q 10Which country had the most donkeys in the world in 2006, with about 11 million?
China
By 2017 its herd had crashed to around 3 million as demand for donkey-hide gelatin soared.
Q 11Ejiao, the Chinese medicine that fuelled a 2010s global donkey trade, is boiled from which body part?
The skin
It could fetch up to $388 per kilogram in 2017, and several African nations banned exports of donkey products to China.
Q 12The world's largest donkey charity, The Donkey Sanctuary, is based near which English town?
Sidmouth
Elisabeth Svendsen founded it in 1969 and it now cares for more than 4,000 animals.
Q 13The first donkeys in the Americas arrived on whose second voyage, landing at Hispaniola in 1495?
Christopher Columbus
They may not have reached what is now the United States until Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande in 1598.
Q 21What is a hybrid of a zebra and a donkey commonly called?
A zonkey
In Tijuana the same word is used for donkeys painted with stripes to pose with tourists.
Q 22The Bronze Age kunga was a cross between a female donkey and a male of which species?
Syrian wild ass
Cuneiform texts describe them as hybrids, but only modern paleogenomics revealed the exact parentage.
Q 23Which founding figure is called the "father of the American mule" for breeding them at Mount Vernon?
George Washington
By 1799 his estate held 27 horses, 20 donkeys and 63 mules.
Q 14Which name is used in the United States for the feral donkeys living west of the Rocky Mountains?
Burro
The word is simply Spanish and Portuguese for donkey; moke, cuddy and neddy are old British dialect words for the animal.
Q 15Which country holds roughly 5 million feral donkeys, officially classed as a pest?
Australia
They were imported as pack animals in 1866 and had multiplied enough to be declared pests in Western Australia by 1949.
Q 16The Baudet du Poitou, a shaggy-coated donkey breed prized for siring mules, comes from which country?
France
By 1977 the breed had dwindled to just 44 animals before a rescue effort began.
Q 17Miniature Mediterranean donkeys in the US descend from 1929 imports from which island?
Sardinia
Robert Green of New York brought over seven; adults stand 36 inches or less at the withers.
Q 18Which is the largest species of wild ass, native to the Tibetan Plateau?
The kiang
It averages 140 cm at the withers, taller than most domestic donkeys.
Q 19The onager, or Asiatic wild ass, is among the fastest mammals; roughly how fast can it run?
About 65 km/h
That is close to a racehorse's top speed and far beyond any domestic donkey.
Q 20Roughly how many critically endangered wild asses, the donkey's ancestor, survive in the Horn of Africa?
570
The Somali subspecies has zebra-like black stripes on its legs.
Q 24From which California desert did the famous twenty-mule teams haul wagons of borax in the 1880s?
Death Valley
Each team was actually eighteen mules and two horses, hauling ten tons of ore per trip.
Q 25In American politics, the donkey is the unofficial mascot of whom?
The Democrats
Cartoonist Thomas Nast popularised the symbol in the 1870s, alongside the Republican elephant.
Q 26In the Book of Numbers, whose donkey sees an angel blocking the road and speaks to its master?
Balaam
King Balak of Moab had hired him to curse Israel, but he ended up blessing them instead.
Q 27Which biblical strongman killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass?
Samson
He also slew a lion with his bare hands, according to the Book of Judges.
Q 28Christians remember Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem on which day of the church year?
Palm Sunday
He sent two disciples ahead to the village of Bethphage to fetch the animal.
Q 29Who voices Donkey in the Shrek films?
Eddie Murphy
His character marries Dragon and fathers a litter of Dronkeys.
Q 30What is the name of the gloomy grey donkey in Winnie-the-Pooh?
Eeyore
He was based on a stuffed toy bought at Harrods, which now lives at the New York Public Library.