Peccaries (Javelinas)
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40 free Peccaries (Javelinas) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ask an Arizonan about the wild pigs that raid gardens and get into the garbage, and you will hear about javelinas. The surprise is that javelinas are not pigs at all. They are peccaries, a separate family of hoofed mammals that has lived in the Americas for millions of years. This quiz gathers the fun facts about Arizona wild pigs that people actually want to know: what javelinas eat, how a herd stays together, why they can seem aggressive, what to do when they turn up in the yard, and how they differ from true swine. It also ranges south to their rainforest and thorn-forest cousins and back in time to their Ice Age ancestors. It suits desert hikers, new Arizona residents, teachers and anyone curious about the animal trotting across the road at dusk. Every answer comes with a brief explanation, so you will leave knowing these animals far better.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the picture book The Three Little Javelinas, which desert animal takes the Big Bad Wolf's role?
Coyote
Coyote plays the villain in Susan Lowell's Southwestern retelling, and only the sister's house of adobe bricks holds firm against him.
Q 02Which cactus do Arizona's javelinas shred with their canine teeth and eat, spines and all?
Prickly pear
Prickly pear is a javelina favourite, and the animals sometimes stomp on the pads first to squash the spines before eating.
Q 03The Chacoan peccary, known from fossils before it was found alive, is a taxon named for which biblical figure?
Lazarus
Lazarus taxon is the term for a species that seems to vanish and then reappears. The Chacoan peccary was described as extinct in 1930 and turned up alive in the 1970s.
Q 04The strong musky odor of peccaries has earned them a nickname that pairs 'pig' with which other animal?
Skunk
Skunk pig is the nickname: the musk comes from glands on the back and below each eye, and it is strong enough for people to detect.
Q 05Which sense do javelinas rely on most to recognise herd mates and detect danger in the desert?
Smell
Smell does the work: javelinas rub against each other's musk glands so the whole herd carries one shared odor, and a stranger is noticed at once.
Q 06What nickname do Arizona wildlife officials give javelina newborns in their first three months of life?
Reds
Reds get the name from their red-brown or tan baby coats, and within a day of birth they are already walking and following the herd.
Q 07Why can a javelina that is only trying to escape seem to be charging right at a hiker?
Very poor eyesight
Very poor eyesight is the cause: a javelina bolting through the brush often cannot see the person right in its path.
Q 08Which ancient American civilization kept herds of peccaries for food and for use in rituals?
Maya
Maya communities in the Yucatán penned and raised peccaries, and the animals' bones turn up at Mesoamerican sites going back to the early Olmec.
Q 09Arizona wildlife officials say javelina bites on people are almost always linked to which human habit?
Feeding them
Feeding them makes javelinas lose their fear of people and return as regulars, which often ends with the animals being removed and killed.
Q 10With coarse, hollow hair that insulates poorly, how does a javelina herd keep warm on cold desert nights?
Sleeping in a pile
Sleeping in a pile, one on top of another, saves heat overnight, and at sunrise the herd spreads out on south- or east-facing slopes to warm up.
Q 11What is the proper name for a herd of peccaries that live and travel together?
A squadron
A squadron is the collective noun, and while many hold under ten animals, some herds of white-lipped peccaries have been counted at more than 100.
Q 12The name javelina reached English through Spanish from which language's word for 'mountain'?
Arabic
Arabic jabal means mountain, and its phrase for a mountain swine became Spanish jabalí, the wild boar, whose feminine form gave English javelina.
Q 13Which domestic animal do javelinas treat as a natural predator, sometimes leaving both animals seriously hurt?
Dogs
Dogs trigger a javelina's defences because wild canines hunt them, so Arizona officials advise leashing pets and quickly walking the other way.
Q 21On which island off Venezuela's coast do locals call the native collared peccary a quenk?
Trinidad
Trinidad is the island where the peccary goes by that name; on neighbouring Tobago it has been hunted until it is exceedingly rare or gone.
Q 22The collared peccary's range runs from the southwestern United States as far south as which country?
Argentina
Argentina marks the southern limit, so one species spans deserts, grasslands, swamps and rainforest across two continents.
Q 23Peccaries first walked into South America about three million years ago when which land bridge formed?
Isthmus of Panama
The Isthmus of Panama joined the two continents, letting peccaries, llamas and tapirs move south while ground sloths and opossums headed north.
Q 14Arizona officials warn that javelinas living around a home may also attract which predator?
Mountain lions
Mountain lions prey on javelinas, which is one more reason officials urge residents to remove the food, water and shelter that draw herds in.
Q 15Big herds of white-lipped peccaries can drive off which rainforest predator with loud calls and clashing teeth?
Jaguar
Jaguar is the predator: herds of up to 300 white-lipped peccaries scream and clack their teeth loudly enough to be heard hundreds of metres away.
Q 16Arizona officials suggest spraying nuisance javelinas with water, vinegar or which diluted household cleaner?
Ammonia
Ammonia, mixed one part to nine parts water in a squirt gun, has an odor and a nasal sting that persuade a javelina to leave.
Q 17How does Arizona classify the javelina under its hunting rules, which make it unlawful to trap one?
Big game
Big game is the javelina's legal status, so a homeowner whose garden is being raided generally cannot trap, injure or kill one.
Q 18After a pregnancy of about five months, what does a javelina mother most commonly give birth to?
Twins
Twins are the usual javelina litter, each baby weighing about a pound, and a mother can raise two litters in a year.
Q 19Along with cactus, which spiky desert plant is a main component of the collared peccary's diet?
Agave
Agave hearts are a staple for desert herds, though collared peccaries will also take insects, eggs, lizards and even dead birds when the chance comes.
Q 20Javelina Rocks, Javelina Wash and a Javelina picnic area are all found in which desert national park?
Saguaro
Saguaro National Park, outside Tucson, has so many herds that javelinas have spent summer days napping below its visitor centre windows.
Q 24San Diego Zoo has backed Proyecto Taguá since 1985 to protect Chacoan peccaries in which South American country?
Paraguay
Paraguay hosts the project, named for taguá, the local word for the Chacoan peccary, which is the largest of the three living species.
Q 25Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen proposed a fourth, 'giant' peccary species from the Amazon of which country?
Brazil
Brazil was where the giant peccary was reported, but a 2011 review found it was just a large collared peccary and it lost its species status.
Q 26Collared peccaries were reintroduced in 2017 to which South American country after a century's absence?
Uruguay
Uruguay had lost its last collared peccaries about 100 years earlier, even though the species remains widespread from the US Southwest down through the tropics.
Q 27The word peccary comes from pakira, a word in which Indigenous language of northern South America?
Carib
Carib speakers' pakira also survives almost unchanged in French Guiana and Suriname, where the animal is still called by that name.
Q 28Javelinas are native, but true pigs reached Florida in 1539 with which Spanish explorer's expedition?
Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto owned 700 hogs by the time he died, and escapees became the feral razorbacks that people now confuse with native peccaries.
Q 29The first written records of javelinas in what is now the United States came from which 18th-century outposts?
Jesuit missions
Jesuit missions logged them in the 1700s, and overgrazing by livestock may later have helped javelinas spread by turning grassland into cactus and mesquite.
Q 30Which South Texas city is home to the university whose teams have been called the Javelinas since 1925?
Kingsville
Kingsville students chose the mascot themselves, and after one of three live javelinas on campus attacked in 1929, the president called it a symbol of student character.