Monkey
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94 free Monkey trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
63 free monkey trivia questions with answers. Discover how much you know about our closest primate relatives with this entertaining monkey trivia quiz. From jungle acrobatics to social hierarchies, test your understanding of these intelligent and fascinating creatures. Whether you're a wildlife enthusiast or just curious about animals, this quiz will educate and entertain you.
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Q 01What do most monkeys have that apes lack?
Presence of a tail
Presence of a tail, even a tiny nub, is the usual tell; the few nearly tailless monkeys were long miscalled apes for exactly that reason.
Q 02A 2017 review found about 60% of primate species to be what?
Threatened
Threatened with extinction, that is: the review also found three in four primate species in decline, mostly because farming, logging and hunting are eating into their forests.
Q 03Which of these primate groups is classified as an Old World monkey?
Langur
Langurs are Old World monkeys; India's grey langurs are held sacred by Hindus, so they wander temples and villages freely, even raiding crops and shops.
Q 04Which of these is a New World monkey?
Titi
Titis are New World monkeys that pair for life, and a bonded couple often sits side by side with tails twined together.
Q 05The ancestors of New World monkeys are thought to have reached South America by rafting across which ocean?
The Atlantic
The Atlantic was much narrower then, and the monkeys' ancestors are thought to have drifted over from Africa on mats of vegetation, perhaps hopping between islands that have since sunk.
Q 06What is the primary function of a prehensile tail for many monkey species?
Grasping branches
Grasping branches is the job: such a tail works as a fifth limb that can hold the monkey's whole weight, leaving both hands free to pick food.
Q 07The pygmy marmoset, the world's smallest monkey, gnaws holes in bark to feed on what?
Tree gum
Tree gum is the staple: a pygmy marmoset gouges holes in bark with its sharp lower teeth, then comes back again and again to lap up what oozes out.
Q 08In Harry Harlow's 1950s experiments, baby monkeys clung to a surrogate 'mother' made of what rather than a wire one with milk?
Soft cloth
Soft cloth won: the infants cuddled the padded dummy for most of the day and visited the wire one only to feed, showing that comfort, not just food, ties a baby to its mother.
Q 09Which country successfully sent the first primate into space in 1949?
United States
The United States launched Albert II on a V-2 rocket in June 1949; he climbed 83 miles, becoming the first primate in space, but died on impact when his parachute failed.
Q 10What does a male baboon's wide 'yawn' at a rival show off?
His long canine teeth
His long canine teeth are the message: a male baboon's yawn is a threat, and paired with raised eyebrows it warns a rival to back down.
Q 11Howler monkeys owe their far-carrying roar to an enlarged bone in which part of the body?
The throat
The throat holds an oversized hyoid bone that deepens and amplifies the call, so a howler chorus at dawn can be heard up to three miles away.
Q 12Old World monkeys are native to which continents?
Africa and Asia
Africa and Asia are their home today, but fossils show Old World monkeys once lived across much of Europe as well.
Q 13A monkey named Imo on Japan's Koshima Island became famous for doing what with sweet potatoes?
Washing them in water
Washing them in water began with Imo, who rinsed the sand off in a stream; her companions copied her, and she later took to dipping her potatoes in the sea.
Q 21Which of these animals is classified as an ape, not a monkey?
Gibbon
Gibbons are the 'lesser apes': long-armed specialists that swing hand over hand beneath the branches, crossing gaps of up to 15 metres at a time.
Q 22Which behaviour between group-mates does most to reinforce monkey social bonds and rank?
Grooming
Grooming mostly flows up the hierarchy: low-ranking monkeys groom their superiors, and partners who groom each other back one another up in fights.
Q 23Capuchin monkeys were once the famous sidekicks of which street musicians, collecting coins from the crowd?
Organ grinders
Organ grinders cranked the tune while the monkey did tricks and held out a tin cup; New York's mayor banned the instruments from the city's streets in 1935.
Q 14Which long-limbed New World monkey's genus name, Ateles, means 'incomplete' because its thumb is missing or tiny?
Spider Monkey
Spider monkeys (genus Ateles) have at most a stub of a thumb, hence the Greek for 'incomplete'; their long limbs dangling from the tail like spider legs earned the common name.
Q 15The infinite monkey theorem pictures a monkey at a typewriter eventually producing the works of which writer?
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is the usual target; when six macaques at an English zoo were given a keyboard in 2003, they typed five pages, mostly the letter S, and used it as a toilet.
Q 16About 300 Barbary macaques, Europe's only wild monkeys, live where?
Gibraltar
Gibraltar's macaques are not native Europeans: the colony was brought over from North Africa, where the species lives wild in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and Algeria.
Q 17Which New World monkeys have claws instead of flat nails on every digit except the big toe?
Marmosets
Marmosets and their tamarin cousins have claw-like nails on all but the big toe, which let them cling to upright trunks and scamper like squirrels.
Q 18Which big-eyed New World monkeys make up the genus Aotus, a name meaning 'earless'?
Night monkeys
Night monkeys, or owl monkeys, are the only truly nocturnal monkeys, and Aotus means 'earless' because their small ears are almost hidden in their fur.
Q 19The gelada, or bleeding-heart monkey, lives only in the highlands of which country?
Ethiopia
Ethiopia's highlands are the gelada's only home; a bright red, hourglass-shaped patch of bare skin on its chest earns it the 'bleeding-heart' name.
Q 20The 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' monkeys were made famous by a 17th-century shrine carving in which country?
Japan
Japan's Tōshō-gū shrine at Nikkō carries the three wise monkeys, close to carved elephants made by an artist who had never seen one.
Q 24In the original Oz novel, who sends the Winged Monkeys after Dorothy and her friends?
The Wicked Witch of the West
The Wicked Witch of the West commands them through a magic Golden Cap, whose owner may call on the Winged Monkeys only three times; Dorothy later takes the cap and they serve her.
Q 25The endangered golden lion tamarin's entire wild range lies within which Brazilian state?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro state holds every wild golden lion tamarin; only a few hundred were left by the early 1970s, before zoo-bred animals were released there to help rebuild the population.
Q 26The name 'colobus' comes from a Greek word meaning 'docked' or 'maimed', referring to what feature?
A stump-like thumb
A stump-like thumb, or none at all, is the 'docked' part behind the Greek-derived name; the tail is anything but docked, being long and tipped with a showy white tuft.
Q 27In Kipling's The Jungle Book, which animal frees Mowgli from his monkey kidnappers by hypnotising them?
Kaa the python
Kaa the python is a hero in the book, not the villain of the Disney film: Baloo and Bagheera recruit him because the monkeys fear him alone, and his swaying 'hunger dance' holds them spellbound.
Q 28In the 1902 horror story The Monkey's Paw, what does the cursed paw grant its owner?
Three wishes
Three wishes come with the paw, each at a terrible price: the family's first, for 200 pounds, is paid out as compensation for their son's death at the factory.
Q 29What is the primary food of most spider monkeys?
Fruits
Fruits are the staple and are swallowed whole, so spider monkeys scatter the seeds in their droppings and rank among the rainforest's key tree planters.
Q 30Which monkey of mangrove swamps is a strong swimmer with partially webbed toes?
Proboscis
The proboscis monkey has partially webbed toes and often belly-flops from branches into the water, swimming hard to outpace the crocodiles that hunt it.