50 free Fingerprints trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This fingerprints trivia quiz covers the ridges on your fingertips and the century of detective work built on them. The easy questions are ones anyone who has watched a crime drama could answer: the three basic pattern types, whether identical twins share prints, what dusting powder reveals, and which phone introduced Touch ID. The harder end is for forensics students and true-crime readers: the Babylonian contracts signed with a fingertip, the Bologna anatomist who saw ridges in 1686, the Scottish surgeon in Tokyo whose 1880 Nature paper started it all, the Bengal official who fingerprinted contracts from 1858, Galton's 1892 book, the Argentine mother convicted by a bloody thumb mark, the Deptford brothers hanged on a cash-box print, the Chicago and Madrid cases, the FBI's apology to Brandon Mayfield, the Scottish detective wrongly accused by her own force, the gene behind people born with no fingerprints, and the animal whose prints fool an electron microscope. Ninhydrin, superglue fuming, Bertillon and Pudd'nhead Wilson get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the science, its pioneers and its famous cases before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our forensic science, famous crimes and human body quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What are the three basic fingerprint patterns in the Henry system?
Loop, whorl and arch
Loops are by far the most common of the three.
Q 02Roughly what share of all fingerprints are arches?
5%
Loops are the most common, at 60 to 65 percent.
Q 03A loop that starts on the little-finger side of the finger is called what?
Ulnar
Radial loops start on the thumb side, near the radius bone.
Q 04Do identical twins have identical fingerprints?
No
Ridge formation is randomised in the womb, so even shared DNA does not produce matching prints.
Q 05What is the name for the raised skin that leaves a fingerprint?
Friction ridges
They occur on fingers, toes, palms and soles.
Q 06What is a chance fingerprint that is invisible to the naked eye called?
A latent print
Patent prints are visible; plastic prints are pressed into soft material like soap or putty.
Q 07A fingerprint pressed into soap, cement or plaster is called what by forensic scientists?
A plastic print
Chocolate, paint or ink on the fingers leaves patent prints instead.
Q 08Which glands secrete most of the watery residue left behind by a fingertip?
Eccrine
Sebaceous oils, mostly from the forehead, add the fatty component.
Q 09Which reagent turns amino acids in a fingerprint deep purple?
Ninhydrin
The colour is called Ruhemann's purple after the chemist who discovered the compound in 1910.
Q 10Fumes of which household glue are used to reveal prints on glass and plastic?
Superglue
Cyanoacrylate vapour polymerises on the ridges, leaving a white deposit.
Q 11How are prints lifted from a nonporous surface after dusting with powder?
With transparent tape
Porous surfaces such as paper need chemical methods instead.
Q 12What is the technique for recording fingerprints digitally on a glass plate called?
Live scan
Ink rolled onto a white card is the traditional alternative.
Q 13Around 200 BCE, fingerprints were used to sign contracts in which ancient city?
Babylon
Records from Hammurabi's reign suggest officials also took the prints of arrested people.
Under which Chinese dynasty did officials collect hand and foot prints as crime-scene evidence?
Q 21Who published the statistical model of fingerprint identification in the 1892 book Finger Prints?
Francis Galton
He was Darwin's half-cousin and the coiner of the word eugenics.
Q 22Which Argentine police officer created the first system for filing individuals' fingerprints in 1892?
Juan Vucetich
His system was adopted across South America.
Q 23Which Argentine woman was the first person convicted of murder on fingerprint evidence?
Francisca Rojas
A bloody thumb mark on a door matched her right thumb; she had blamed a neighbour.
Qin
Chinese officials also authenticated documents with fingerprints.
Q 15Which Bologna anatomist identified ridges, spirals and loops in fingerprints in 1686?
Marcello Malpighi
A layer of the skin is still named after him.
Q 16Who identified nine fingerprint patterns in 1823?
Jan Evangelista Purkyně
German anatomist Johann Mayer had concluded in 1788 that prints were unique to each person.
Q 17Where did Sir William Herschel start using fingerprints on contracts in 1858?
Bengal, India
He later registered pensioners' prints so relatives could not keep collecting after a death.
Q 18Which Scottish surgeon working in Tokyo published the first paper on fingerprints for identification in 1880?
Henry Faulds
He proposed recording them with printing ink; Scotland Yard dismissed the idea in 1886.
Q 19In which journal did Faulds publish his 1880 fingerprint paper?
Nature
He offered the idea to the Metropolitan Police on returning to Britain in 1886 and was dismissed.
Q 20Which naturalist did Faulds ask for help promoting fingerprint identification?
Charles Darwin
Darwin declined but forwarded the idea to his half-cousin Galton.
Q 24What did Argentina become the first country to do after the Rojas case?
File criminal records by prints alone
It abolished Bertillon's body-measurement system for identifying criminals.
Q 25Which Frenchman's anthropometry system, based on body measurements, did fingerprints replace?
Alphonse Bertillon
His flawed handwriting testimony also helped convict Alfred Dreyfus.
Q 26Which two Bengal sub-inspectors helped Edward Henry devise his classification system?
Haque and Bose
Their work between 1896 and 1897 let records be sorted and searched with ease.
Q 27How many groups does the Henry system's primary classification divide print sets into?
1,024
The fraction's numerator and denominator each run from 1 to 32.
Q 28In which year did Scotland Yard begin fingerprinting individuals to identify criminals?
1901
Edward Henry, later Commissioner, brought his system from Bengal.
Q 29Which post did Edward Henry hold from 1903 to 1918?
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
He had been Inspector-General of Police of Bengal from 1891.
Q 30Where were the prints found that convicted the murderer Scheffer in 1902, the first such case?
A fractured glass showcase
The theft was in a dentist's apartment where an employee lay dead; Bertillon made the match.