Gray Whales
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40 free Gray Whales trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Gray whales (or grey whales, in the other spelling) are among the easiest great whales to see from land, because they swim close to the coast on a round trip that takes up much of the year. Along the way they do things no other large whale does, and they have been surprising whalers and scientists for centuries. This quiz turns the best gray whale fun facts into 40 questions with answers and explanations. It covers how the whales feed, breathe and raise their calves, what hitches a ride on their bodies, which animals hunt them, and the people who nearly wiped them out and later tried to save them. The questions range from easy to hard, so they work for kids, classrooms and family quiz nights as well as for whale watchers who want to test themselves before a trip.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Gray whales, which hug North America's Pacific coast, have one of the longest what of any mammal?
Migrations
Migrations of up to 22,000 km a year carry gray whales from Arctic feeding grounds to warm calving lagoons and back. They travel night and day, covering about 120 km every 24 hours.
Q 02Each winter gray whales swim south from the Arctic to give birth in warm lagoons in which country?
Mexico
Mexico's Pacific lagoons fill with nursing, calving and mating gray whales by late winter. The shallow water is thought to keep newborn calves safe from sharks.
Q 03Whalers gave gray whales which nickname because mothers fought so fiercely to protect their calves?
Devil fish
Devil fish was the whalers' name for gray whales, which reacted violently when harpooned. Today the same animals are known for their gentle curiosity toward boats.
Q 04Gray whales breathe through two blowholes, so in calm air their spout can form which shape?
A heart
A heart is the shape of the gray whale's distinctive blow on a windless day. Toothed whales such as dolphins could never make one, because they have a single blowhole.
Q 05In their winter lagoons, gray whales often swim up to small boats and let tourists do what?
Pet them
Pet them: gray whales in the calving lagoons often come close enough to boats to be touched. That curiosity has made whale watching there especially popular.
Q 06Which predator hunts gray whale calves by ramming them from below to split them from their mothers?
Killer whales
Killer whales are the only predators of adult gray whales apart from humans. Typically three or four of them ram a calf from beneath while its mother fights to defend it.
Q 07Which 2012 Drew Barrymore film retells the 1988 rescue of three gray whales trapped in Arctic ice?
Big Miracle
Big Miracle retells Operation Breakthrough, a rescue that drew a swarm of journalists to the ice. The film was originally known as Everybody Loves Whales.
Q 08Which country sent two icebreakers in 1988 to help free three gray whales trapped in Arctic ice?
Soviet Union
Soviet Union icebreakers answered an American request and broke apart a ridge of ice 30 feet high. Two of the three whales were still alive when the path to open water was cut.
Q 09Gray whales rub against pebbly seabeds, apparently to scrape off which hard-shelled hitchhikers?
Barnacles
Barnacles of one species live almost only on gray whales, embedding deep in the skin of the head and back. An adult whale can carry several hundred pounds of passengers.
Q 10A gray whale calf, about 15 feet long at birth, usually enters the world in which way?
Tail first
Tail first is how gray whale calves arrive, and most of them are born within the same six weeks around the middle of January.
Q 11Gray whales have only a low hump and a row of small bumps where most whales have which fin?
Dorsal fin
Dorsal fin is the one a gray whale lacks: a hump sits about two-thirds of the way down its body instead, followed by 6 to 12 small bumps running toward the tail.
Q 12Because of the way they feed, gray whales often leave long trails of what behind them?
Mud
Mud billows out behind a feeding gray whale because it sucks up sediment and strains out the small animals living in it. The whales also leave feeding pits in the sea floor.
Q 13Gray whale calves put on weight quickly thanks to a mother's milk that is 53 percent what?
Fat
Fat makes up over half of a gray whale mother's milk. She nurses her calf for about seven months before it is weaned.
Q 21A gray whale that turned up far outside the Pacific in 2010 is thought to have used which route?
Northwest Passage
Northwest Passage ice had melted enough by 2007 to make the Arctic shortcut fully navigable. A swim around the tip of South America was judged far less likely.
Q 22In 2010 a wandering gray whale amazed scientists by appearing off Israel in which body of water?
The Mediterranean
The Mediterranean visitor was seen again later the same month off Barcelona. Bones from Roman-era sites show that gray whales once swam there too.
Q 23Most gray whales spend the summer feeding in shallow northern seas off the coast of which US state?
Alaska
Q 14Despite the name, the whale lice that cling to a gray whale's skin belong to which animal group?
Crustaceans
Crustaceans, not insects, are what whale lice really are: relatives of the skeleton shrimp. Up to 7,500 of them can live on a single whale.
Q 15Gray whale baleen is made of which protein, the same material found in human fingernails?
Keratin
Keratin forms the 130 to 180 coarse plates that hang from each side of a gray whale's upper jaw. The plates work like a sieve, trapping small animals while water drains away.
Q 16When gray whales roll to scoop food from the seabed, which way do most of them seem to turn?
Onto the right
Onto the right is the roll most gray whales seem to favor, much as most people favor one hand. Blue whales show the same preference when they feed.
Q 17Which tiny animals, sifted from the seabed, are a main food source for gray whales?
Amphipods
Amphipods are shrimp-like animals that live in the sediment, and gray whales gulp them along with sand and water. Some scientists think shrinking sea ice is pushing the whales onto less nutritious krill.
Q 18Which other whales have been seen defending gray whale calves from attacking predators?
Humpbacks
Humpbacks have been observed coming to the defence of gray whale calves under attack. The stakes are high: by one rough estimate a third of each year's calves may be lost to predators.
Q 19Gray whales now live only in the North Pacific after dying out centuries ago in which ocean?
Atlantic
Atlantic gray whales vanished from Europe's coasts in the Middle Ages and from American shores by the early 1700s. Whaling is a suspected cause.
Q 20Whalers of the 1800s killed thousands of gray whales in their breeding lagoons for which product?
Oil
Oil was the prize: one captain's winter catch of 47 whales yielded 1,700 barrels. Hunting on that scale brought gray whales close to extinction before they were protected.
Alaska borders the Bering and Chukchi seas, where most gray whales spend the summer eating. They head south each October as the northern ice pushes down.
Q 24The gray whale has been the official state marine mammal of which US state since 1975?
California
California picked an animal its residents can watch from the beach: from December to February the whales pass southward in small groups along the state's coast.
Q 25Organised whale watching began in 1950, when crowds watched gray whales swim past which US city?
San Diego
San Diego's Cabrillo National Monument was declared a public whale lookout that year and drew 10,000 visitors in its first season.
Q 26Which Native people of Washington State point to an 1855 treaty to justify hunting gray whales?
Makah
Makah whalers took a gray whale in May 1999, their first since the 1920s. They had stopped hunting back then because commercial whaling had left too few whales.
Q 27One study found healthy gray whales stranding far more often at times with many of what?
Sunspots
Sunspots signal solar storms, which may scramble a magnetic sense the whales could be using to find their way. The idea is unproven: nobody has shown that whales steer by magnetism.
Q 28Which gray whales are usually the first to reach the sheltered winter lagoons each year?
Pregnant females
Pregnant females arrive first, seeking protected water in which to give birth. In spring the order flips: mothers with newborns are the last to leave, waiting until their calves are ready.
Q 29Small dimples on a gray whale's upper jaw each hold a single one of which mammal feature?
A stiff hair
A stiff hair sits in each dimple, though it takes a very close look to see one. Baleen whales such as the gray keep a few small hairs on their heads as adults.
Q 30Gray whales often rise straight up to hold their heads above the waves, a move known as what?
Spyhopping
Spyhopping lets a whale look and listen above the surface. Gray whales are thought to do it near the surf line to hear the breaking waves that mark out their route.