Dugong
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40 free Dugong trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The dugong is a shy, slow-moving sea cow that spends its days eating seagrass along warm, shallow coasts. It looks a little like a manatee, yet it belongs to a family of its own and is the last living member of it. This quiz turns the best dugong fun facts into questions: how its body is built, what it eats and how it finds a meal, how mothers raise their calves, which animals it is related to, where the largest populations survive and why so many of them are in trouble. Every answer comes with a short explanation. The questions start easy, so kids and first-time fans can jump straight in, and they get harder as you go, with a few deep cuts for divers, wildlife enthusiasts and anyone who has ever hoped to spot one in the wild.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which land animals are dugongs more closely related to than they are to whales or seals?
Elephants
Elephants share an ancient ancestor with dugongs and manatees, a family tie that also takes in the small, furry hyraxes.
Q 02Sailors' sightings of dugongs are often said to have inspired which legendary sea creatures?
Mermaids
Mermaids are often said to be inspired by dugongs, and one Malay name for the animal means woman of the sea.
Q 03A manatee has a paddle-shaped tail, but a dugong's tail looks like that of which animal?
Dolphin
A dolphin has the same notched, fluked tail as a dugong, which sweeps it up and down in long strokes to cruise at about 10 km/h.
Q 04How do dugongs sometimes rest in shallow water with their heads above the surface to breathe?
Standing on their tails
Standing on their tails lets dugongs breathe with their heads out of the water; they usually come up every couple of minutes but can hold a breath for six.
Q 05How do feeding dugongs get around a seagrass meadow, instead of swimming as they do in open water?
Walk on their flippers
Dugongs walk on their flippers as they graze, and those paddle-like forelimbs make up only about 15% of the animal's body length.
Q 06What do male dugongs grow at puberty that shows females they have reached breeding age?
Tusks
Tusks erupt in male dugongs when testosterone rises at puberty, and the growth layers inside them let scientists work out an animal's age.
Q 07What does a dugong mother do as soon as her calf is born in very shallow water?
Pushes it up for air
A dugong mother pushes it up for air straight away, and the newborn, already about 1.2 metres long, then stays close to her side.
Q 08Adult dugongs have few natural enemies, yet one was recorded dying after a strike from which animal?
Stingray
A stingray barb impaled the dugong and it died of the trauma; crocodiles and killer whales are the more usual threats, mostly to the young.
Q 09In 2022, a study declared the dugong functionally extinct in the coastal waters of which country?
China
China had no confirmed dugong record after 2008, and an interview survey across four southern provinces led scientists to call the animal functionally extinct there.
Q 10A dugong's ribs are among the densest bones of any animal; what are they thought to do in the water?
Act as ballast
The heavy bones are thought to act as ballast, holding a dugong just below the surface; they are so solid that they contain little or no marrow.
Q 11Dugongs breathe through nostrils on top of the head; what seals those nostrils during a dive?
Valves
Valves close the nostrils as a dugong goes under, and its unusually long lungs stretch almost as far back as the kidneys.
Q 12A dugong calf is born which colour before its skin darkens to brownish or dark grey with age?
Pale cream
Pale cream is the colour of a newborn dugong's thick, smooth skin, which darkens along the back and sides as the animal grows older.
Q 13A dugong's snout bends sharply downward as an adaptation for which everyday activity?
Feeding on the seabed
Feeding on the seabed is what the downturned snout is built for; manatees, the dugong's closest living cousins, have noticeably shorter snouts.
Q 21Which term describes male dugongs defending small territories where they display to females?
Lekking
Lekking is known from some dugong populations; in others, many males instead compete to mate with a single female.
Q 22Dugongs are social animals, so why are they usually found alone or in pairs?
Meadows cannot feed large herds
Meadows cannot feed large herds for long, so gatherings of hundreds of dugongs do happen but break up after a short time.
Q 23Dugongs and manatees, the only fully aquatic plant-eating mammals, make up which scientific order?
Sirenia
Sirenia takes its name from the sirens of Greek myth and has just four living species: the dugong and three manatees.
Q 14With very small eyes and poor sight, dugongs often rely on which sense to find edible plants?
Smell
Smell guides dugongs to edible plants, and the long, sensitive bristles around the mouth then help them feel their way through a meadow.
Q 15What do dugongs do with a seagrass plant they have dug up before they eat it?
Shake off the sand
Dugongs shake off the sand from each uprooted plant, roots and all, and have been known to gather a pile of plants before starting to eat.
Q 16What telltale marks do feeding dugongs leave across the floor of a seagrass meadow?
Long furrows
Long furrows in the sand trace each dugong's path through a meadow, and such feeding trails have been seen as deep as 33 metres.
Q 17Which horseshoe-shaped part of a dugong's face works as a muscular tool for digging up plants?
Upper lip
The upper lip of a dugong forms a highly mobile muzzle, and the short hairs clustered around it are thought to help the animal sense its surroundings by touch.
Q 18Which term describes dugong feeding that clears space for the fast-growing seagrasses they prefer?
Cultivation grazing
Cultivation grazing works a little like gardening: quick-growing plants that are low in fibre and rich in nitrogen fill the open space dugongs leave behind.
Q 19What can grow on a dugong's skin and change the colour that the animal appears?
Algae
Algae growing on the skin can tint a dugong, an animal that will also eat the stuff when its favourite plants are scarce.
Q 20Dugongs communicate underwater with chirps, whistles and which sound more often linked with dogs?
Barks
Barks are among the dugong's calls and are used in aggressive behaviour, a useful signal for an animal whose eyesight is poor.
Q 24Steller's sea cow, the dugong's extinct closest relative, lived around islands in which sea?
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea was the giant's last refuge, around the Commander Islands, and hunters wiped it out within 27 years of its discovery by Europeans.
Q 25The dugong became the first marine animal to be protected by law in which island country?
Philippines
The Philippines once had sizeable dugong herds around all its islands, but numbers fell sharply from the 1970s as animals drowned in fishing gear.
Q 26The dugong is a national animal of which neighbour of Australia that bans non-traditional hunting?
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea counts the dugong among its national animals, and dugong meat and ornaments carved from its bones are prized at feasts there.
Q 27How does the IUCN Red List classify the dugong, a slow breeder whose numbers are falling?
Vulnerable
Vulnerable is the dugong's global rating; a female may wait several years between calves, so even small losses are hard to replace.
Q 28Plans for a US military base at Henoko threatened the last few dugongs of which Japanese island?
Okinawa
Okinawa was thought to have as few as three dugongs left, and some islanders took their fight against the base to US courts.
Q 29After Australia, which body of water holds the world's second-largest dugong population?
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf is home to several thousand dugongs, and a single gathering of more than 600 was once sighted west of Qatar.
Q 30A young dugong stays near its mother for about 18 months and sometimes hitches a ride where?
On her back
On her back is where a calf sometimes rides, and although it starts eating seagrass soon after birth it keeps nursing for more than a year.