Fox Trivia
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45 free Fox trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
46 free Fox trivia questions with answers. Foxes live on every continent but one, and this quiz follows them everywhere. It covers the animals themselves: what a female is called, why the fennec's ears are so big, how the Arctic fox changes coat, how a red fox lines up its pounce with the Earth's magnetic field, and which fox eats almost nothing but termites. It also covers the Russian experiment that bred tame, floppy-eared foxes in a few decades. The second half is the fox in culture: the nine-tailed kitsune of Japan, Reynard and the word 'renard', Disney's fox Robin Hood, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Fox and the Hound, fox hunting and Oscar Wilde's famous jibe, and even why a web browser and a TV network carry the name. Easy questions suit kids and animal lovers; the hard ones will test a zoologist. Every answer is verified against Wikipedia's articles on the species and works involved, and each question carries its source.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is a female fox called?
A vixen
A vixen: she gives birth in a den, and the father stays to help raise the cubs until they leave home in the autumn.
Q 02Which of these is a real collective noun for a group of foxes?
A skulk
A skulk: red foxes live in small family groups, yet each usually forages alone.
Q 03Which German field marshal of World War II was nicknamed 'the Desert Fox'?
Erwin Rommel
Erwin Rommel: linked to the plotters behind the failed July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life, he was forced to take poison to protect his family.
Q 04Which English idiom comes from one of Aesop's fables about a fox?
Sour grapes
Sour grapes: in the fable, a fox that can't reach some grapes walks away saying they must have been sour anyway.
Q 05Flying foxes are actually which kind of animal?
Fruit bats
Fruit bats: unlike most bats, flying foxes can't echolocate, so they find their way in the dark by sight.
Q 06What is the fox's bushy tail traditionally called?
A brush
A brush: a fox also uses it to talk to other foxes, raising it or lashing it back and forth to signal its mood.
Q 07A fox's underground den is traditionally called what?
An earth
An earth: chasing a fox into its den gave English the idiom 'run to earth', meaning to track something down after a long search.
Q 08Which is the smallest of all canid species?
Fennec fox
Fennec fox: its huge ears radiate body heat to keep it cool and help it hear prey moving under the sand.
Q 09The big-eared desert fox of the Sahara is the national animal of which country?
Algeria
Algeria: the fox's furry feet grip loose sand and protect it from the scorching desert ground.
Q 10What colour does the Arctic fox's 'white morph' coat turn in summer?
Brown
Brown: once the snow melts, the darker summer coat helps the fox blend in among the rocks and plants of the tundra.
Q 11A young Arctic fox crossed the sea ice from Norway's Svalbard to which island in just 21 days?
Greenland
Greenland: she kept going to Ellesmere Island, covering 3,506 km in 76 days before her tracker stopped working.
Q 12Arctic foxes that live inland on the tundra specialize in hunting which animal?
Lemmings
Lemmings: their numbers boom and crash every three to five years, so the size of a fox family's litter swings widely from year to year.
Q 13Which North American fox can climb trees and leap from branch to branch?
Gray fox
Gray fox: it scrambles up trees to escape predators such as coyotes and dogs, and to reach food in the branches.
Q 21In 2011, a fox was found living near the top of which unfinished London skyscraper?
The Shard
The Shard: the fox had probably climbed up the central stairwell, and it survived on scraps of food left by the builders.
Q 22When an old book's pages are described as 'foxed', what do they have?
Brown spots
Brown spots: no one is sure what causes them, though mould and rusting specks of metal in the paper are both suspects.
Q 23Dmitry Belyayev's famous fox-domestication experiment, begun in 1959, took place in which Russian city?
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk: under Lysenko, genetics was politically dangerous, so through the 1950s Belyayev passed off his genetics work as animal physiology.
Q 14What does Africa's bat-eared fox mainly eat?
Insects
Insects: mostly termites, and the fox gets much of the water it needs from the body fluids of the insects it eats.
Q 15In the Sonic the Hedgehog games, what is the name of Sonic's fox sidekick?
Tails
Tails: his designer gave him two tails to make him stand out, and named him Miles Prower, a pun on 'miles per hour'.
Q 16The swift fox died out in which country in the 20th century, before a reintroduction began in 1983?
Canada
Canada: they probably fell victim to the trapping and poisoning campaigns aimed at other predators, such as coyotes and wolves.
Q 17A red fox hunting mice under snow appears to align its leap with what?
Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic field: the fox first locates the hidden prey by sound, then jumps high so that it drops on it from above.
Q 18Which comedy duo's 2013 viral music video asked what sound a fox makes?
Ylvis
Ylvis: the Norwegian brothers made it as a joke meant to flop on their talk show, then watched it become a worldwide hit.
Q 19The red fox's tail gland is said to smell of which flower?
Violets
Violets: the gland gives off scent compounds also found in flowers, and foxes may use the smell to send signals to one another.
Q 20How did much of Western and Central Europe get rid of rabies in its foxes?
Spreading vaccine baits
Spreading vaccine baits: some of the first baits were chicken heads with a vaccine capsule hidden inside, left out for foxes to eat.
Q 24In Belyayev's experiment, which dog-like trait had appeared in a tame fox cub by the tenth generation?
Floppy ears
Floppy ears: the foxes were bred only for tameness, yet the trait came along anyway, as it has in many domestic animals.
Q 25In Japanese folklore, kitsune are messengers of which Shinto deity?
Inari
Inari: fried tofu is said to be the foxes' favourite food, which is why noodles topped with it are called kitsune udon, or fox udon.
Q 26In 2022, what happened to Japan's 'killing stone', said to hold the spirit of a nine-tailed fox?
It split in two
It split in two: the rock had been cracked for years, so nature was the likely culprit, but priests still held a ceremony to calm the fox's spirit.
Q 27A sunshower, rain while the sun shines, is called what in Japanese folklore?
The fox's wedding
The fox's wedding: in Akira Kurosawa's film Dreams, a boy told not to spy on one sneaks into the forest to watch the procession and angers the foxes.
Q 28Thanks to the medieval tales of a trickster fox, 'renard' replaced which older French word for fox?
Goupil
Goupil: the tales were so popular across medieval Europe that the fox hero's own name took over as the word for the animal.
Q 29In Disney's Pinocchio, what is the name of the sly fox who leads Pinocchio astray?
Honest John
Honest John: his cat sidekick Gideon never speaks, so Warner Bros. voice star Mel Blanc ended up supplying nothing but a hiccup.
Q 30Which actor voiced the fox Robin Hood in Disney's 1973 film?
Brian Bedford
Brian Bedford: pop star Tommy Steele was first in line, but Disney staff saw Bedford on stage in Los Angeles and brought him in to test.