Javan Rhinoceros
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40 free Javan Rhinoceros trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Javan rhinoceros is one of the rarest large mammals alive. Every wild animal lives in a single national park, Ujung Kulon, at the tip of Java in Indonesia, and almost nobody has ever seen one in the flesh. This quiz turns the best fun facts about Javan rhinos into questions: what the horn is for, how the animals feed and keep cool, how researchers study a species they can barely find, and how it vanished from the rest of Asia. Every answer comes with a short explanation. It suits animal lovers, students working on a conservation project, and anyone who enjoys a wildlife round at quiz night.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01With no natural salt licks in Ujung Kulon, Javan rhinoceroses have been seen drinking what instead?
Seawater
Seawater seems to give Ujung Kulon's rhinos the minerals that salt licks supplied elsewhere in their old range. Salt is an essential part of the species' diet.
Q 02The Javan rhinoceros has the smallest horn of any living rhino, but which animals normally grow one?
Only males
Only males carry the horn. Females are the only living rhinos that stay hornless as adults, growing at most a bump an inch or two high.
Q 03Which volcano's 1883 eruption emptied Ujung Kulon of people, leaving the Javan rhinoceros a refuge?
Krakatoa
Krakatoa's eruption and tsunami wrecked the peninsula's settlements, which were never fully rebuilt. The rhinos moved back in while people stayed away, creating a haven for wildlife.
Q 04In which mainland country was the last Javan rhinoceros outside Indonesia shot by poachers in 2010?
Vietnam
Vietnam lost its final rhino in Cat Tien National Park, where the animal was found with its horn removed. The species was confirmed extinct there the following year.
Q 05When a Javan rhinoceros attacks, it thrusts its head upward and stabs with which body part?
Sharp lower teeth
Sharp lower teeth, long dagger-like incisors, are the real weapons of a Javan rhino. The horn is used for pulling down plants and pushing through thick vegetation, not for fighting.
Q 06Which is the only living species besides the Javan rhinoceros to have one horn rather than two?
Indian rhino
Indian rhino and Javan rhino share a genus, which is why the Javan is also called the lesser one-horned rhinoceros. The other three living species all have two horns.
Q 07A Ta Prohm temple carving, possibly a Javan rhinoceros, is often claimed to show which dinosaur?
Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus believers point to plate-like shapes along its back, which are more likely leaves carved behind an animal such as a rhino. Its neighbours on the column are ordinary local wildlife.
Q 08Which big cat, now extinct on Java, shared Ujung Kulon with the Javan rhinoceros until the mid-1960s?
Tiger
Tiger numbers dwindled until the Javan tiger died out altogether. Adult rhinos in the park now have no natural predator except people.
Q 09Bacuya, a shy young Javan rhinoceros, was the mascot of a 2023 youth World Cup in which sport?
Soccer
Soccer's 2023 FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Indonesia starred Bacuya, who wore the national team's red and white shirt. The name is short for Badak Cula Cahaya.
Q 10Like all rhinos, the Javan rhinoceros smells and hears well, but which of its senses is very poor?
Vision
Vision is the weak point: a Javan rhino is short-sighted and relies on its nose and ears. It is also skittish, retreating into dense forest whenever people come near.
Q 11Where does the IUCN Red List place the Javan rhinoceros, the rarest of the five living rhinos?
Critically Endangered
Critically Endangered is the last category before extinction in the wild. With the whole species confined to one small area, a single disease outbreak could be catastrophic.
Q 12The horn of a Javan rhinoceros is not bone but which protein, also found in human fingernails?
Keratin
Keratin is the stuff of hair and nails, and there is no good evidence that rhino horn has any health benefit. Poachers kill for it all the same.
Q 13In which country has the horn of the Javan rhinoceros and other rhinos been traded for over 2,000 years?
China
Q 21Which long, pointed feature does a browsing Javan rhinoceros use to grasp leaves, shoots and twigs?
Upper lip
Upper lip is the tool: prehensile like a finger, it grips food after the rhino has pushed a sapling over to bring the foliage within reach.
Q 22Ujung Kulon, last refuge of the Javan rhinoceros, gained which international designation in 1991?
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site status came from UNESCO a year before the area was formally declared a national park.
Q 23Roughly how much plant food is a single Javan rhinoceros estimated to eat every day?
About 50 kg
About 50 kg (110 lb) of shoots, twigs, young leaves and fallen fruit go down daily, drawn from hundreds of different plant species.
China has prized rhino horn for its supposed healing powers for more than two millennia. Poaching to feed that trade is the main reason the Javan rhino declined.
Q 14Which daily habit keeps a Javan rhinoceros cool and rids its skin of parasites and insects?
Wallowing in mud
Wallowing in mud fills a large part of a Javan rhino's day. It rarely digs its own pit, preferring to enlarge an existing hollow with its horn and feet.
Q 15Too rare and shy to follow, Javan rhinoceroses are studied mainly with which hidden devices?
Camera traps
Camera traps let rangers recognise each rhino without disturbing it. In 2012 conservation groups added 120 more to the 40 already watching the park.
Q 16The word rhinoceros in Javan rhinoceros joins terms for nose and horn from which classical language?
Greek
Greek supplied both halves: ris for nose and keras for an animal's horn. Only two living species carry Rhinoceros as their genus name.
Q 17Ujung Kulon protects Java's largest remaining area of which habitat, home to the Javan rhinoceros?
Lowland rainforest
Lowland rainforest is dense, but the rhinos feed mostly in its sunny clearings, where saplings and shrubs grow within reach.
Q 18Javan rhinoceroses rarely gather, but which collective noun describes a group of rhinos?
Crash
Crash is the term, though this species seldom forms one: adults keep to themselves and only now and then gather in small groups.
Q 19As odd-toed hoofed mammals, Javan rhinoceroses share a group with horses and which other animals?
Tapirs
Tapirs, horses and rhinos are the only three living families of odd-toed ungulates. Rhino ancestors split from the horse line around 50 million years ago.
Q 20Which European country's colonial rulers made the Javan rhinoceros a protected species in 1931?
Netherlands
Netherlands officials in the East Indies granted the protection as the species neared extinction on Sumatra. The rhino has kept that legal status ever since.
Q 24The last Javan rhinoceros kept in a zoo died in 1907 at which zoo, shown under the wrong name?
Adelaide Zoo
Adelaide Zoo had exhibited the animal as a different, better-known rhino species. No Javan rhino is recorded as giving birth in captivity, and the oldest captive lived only to 20.
Q 25On a Javan rhinoceros, skin folds across the back of the neck and shoulders form which shape?
A saddle
A saddle over the shoulders is one way to tell this species from its larger one-horned cousin, whose neck folds are heavier. The skin's mosaic pattern adds a scale-like look.
Q 26Which wildlife treaty has banned international trade in Javan rhinoceros products since 1975?
CITES
CITES placed the species on Appendix I, its strictest list, from the day the convention came into force. That outlaws cross-border sales of the animal and anything made from it.
Q 27Which temple built under King Suryavarman II has reliefs thought to show the Javan rhinoceros?
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat has at least three rhino carvings, including one attacking the damned in a panel of heaven and hell. The species once lived in Cambodia.
Q 28Until 1908, Javan rhinoceroses were still being sighted in which tidal forest region of Bengal?
Sundarbans
Sundarbans sightings ran from 1630 to 1908, though only six animals were thought to survive there by 1892.
Q 29Which wild cattle species competes with the Javan rhinoceros for feeding grounds inside Ujung Kulon?
Banteng
Banteng feed in the same shrinking clearings, and as open feeding areas were lost the two species were pushed into closer competition. That rivalry may hold rhino numbers down.
Q 30A Javan rhinoceros's grey skin looks almost black when wet, but which colour shows inside its folds?
Pink
Pink skin lines the deep folds that circle the body behind the front legs and ahead of the hind legs.