Squirrel Monkey
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40 free Squirrel Monkey trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Squirrel monkeys are among the liveliest primates in the rainforest. They race through the trees in noisy troops, hunt in ways few people expect from so small a monkey, and have some of the strangest habits in the animal kingdom. This quiz turns the best fun facts about squirrel monkeys into multiple-choice questions: how their bodies cope with heat, what they eat and what eats them, how males and females get along, where the different species live, and how a few individuals ended up in the history books. It suits zoo visitors, students, teachers planning a rainforest lesson and anyone who has watched a troop tumble past and wondered what was going on. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Squirrel monkeys rub which liquid over their own skin, a habit thought to help them cool off?
Urine
Urine is the liquid: the habit, called urine washing, peaks on the hottest days, so evaporation is thought to cool the monkey. It may also carry scent signals.
Q 02Relative to body size, squirrel monkeys hold which record among all primates?
Largest brain
Largest brain is the record: weight for weight, a squirrel monkey carries more brain than any other primate, humans included.
Q 03Unlike spider and howler monkeys, an adult squirrel monkey uses its long tail mainly for what?
Balance
Balance is the tail's job: it works like a tightrope walker's pole as the monkey races along branches. Only newborn infants can grip with it.
Q 04The squirrel monkey's black-and-white face inspired which grim phrase in its German, Dutch and Swedish names?
Death's head
Death's head is what Totenkopf means in the German name Totenkopfaffe: the white mask and dark muzzle look like a skull.
Q 05Squirrel monkey Miss Baker, who survived a 1959 US rocket flight, was first bought from what kind of place?
A pet shop
A pet shop sold her, along with 25 other squirrel monkeys, to be tested as flight candidates. She stood out for her gentle manner and earned the nickname TLC.
Q 06Central American squirrel monkeys knock which animals out of folded-leaf shelters to eat them?
Bats
Bats are the target: the monkey spots a tent-making bat's folded leaf, climbs above it and jumps onto the tent to dislodge the sleeper. A bat too slow to fly off gets eaten.
Q 07Central American squirrel monkeys, wary of birds of prey, have given alarm calls at which harmless things?
Small airplanes
Small airplanes set them off, as do falling branches and big leaves: anything shaped like a raptor overhead sends the whole troop diving for cover.
Q 08Escaped and released squirrel monkeys formed wild colonies from the 1960s onward in which US state?
Florida
Florida has had five such colonies, one released at Silver Springs around 1960. Cold winters and trappers wore them down, and by 2021 a single monkey was left.
Q 09Which colorful rainforest birds are known to prey on infant Central American squirrel monkeys?
Toucans
Toucans take newborns, as do tayras, opossums, coatis and snakes. Only about half of the infants survive their first six months.
Q 10In 2009, gene therapy given to adult male squirrel monkeys appeared to cure which condition present from birth?
Color blindness
Color blindness of the red-green kind is natural in every male squirrel monkey. After a human pigment gene was delivered to their retinas, treated males passed color vision tests.
Q 11Squirrel monkeys, which live in hot and humid forests, can sweat only through which parts of the body?
Palms and soles
Palms and soles are the only places a squirrel monkey sweats, which is why its hands and feet can feel damp to the touch.
Q 12Which magazine put squirrel monkey Miss Baker and her crewmate Able on its cover in June 1959?
Life
Life ran the pair on its cover after a US Navy ship recovered their capsule from the Atlantic. Miss Baker later drew 100 to 150 letters a day from schoolchildren.
Q 13Miss Baker, the squirrel monkey who rode a US rocket in 1959, is buried at a rocket museum in which state?
Alabama
Alabama is home to the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, where she lived from 1971. She died in 1984, by then the oldest squirrel monkey on record.
Q 21Central American squirrel monkeys spend two-thirds to three-quarters of each day on which activity?
Foraging for food
Foraging for food fills most of the day, and a troop covers 2.5 to 4.2 km doing it, without ever splitting into separate search parties.
Q 22Where does a newborn black-capped squirrel monkey spend almost all of its first few days?
On its mother's back
On its mother's back is where the newborn clings, barely moving, at the start. Adult males take almost no part in raising the young.
Q 23Most squirrel monkey species live in the rainforest basin of which great South American river?
Amazon
Q 14In 1962, caretakers of space-flown squirrel monkey Miss Baker held which ceremony for her and Big George?
A wedding
A wedding paired her with Big George. After he died in 1979 she was married again, to a monkey named Norman, and tore off her white bridal train within seconds.
Q 15Which Space Shuttle carried two squirrel monkeys and 24 rats into orbit on the Spacelab 3 mission in 1985?
Challenger
Challenger flew the animals in special cages for seven days. The two monkeys had no names, only numbers: No. 3165 and No. 384-80.
Q 16South American squirrel monkeys often feed alongside which bigger monkeys, gaining from their predator alarms?
Capuchins
Capuchins lead them to the richest feeding trees and add extra eyes to spot danger. The Central American squirrel monkey is the exception: it rarely joins its capuchin neighbors.
Q 17The Central American squirrel monkey lives wild in just two countries: Panama and which other?
Costa Rica
Costa Rica holds most of them, along its Pacific coast. The species has fallen from about 200,000 animals in the 1970s to fewer than 5,000.
Q 18The black squirrel monkey has one of the smallest ranges of any primate, all inside one reserve in which country?
Brazil
Brazil's Mamirauá reserve holds the entire species, squeezed in where two rivers meet and sharing the forest with two other kinds of squirrel monkey.
Q 19The black squirrel monkey lives only in várzea, a type of forest shaped by which yearly event?
Seasonal flooding
Seasonal flooding can put around 35 feet of water in the forest, and floods that last unusually long are a threat to the monkeys' tiny home.
Q 20Before breeding season, male squirrel monkeys undergo which change that females seem to favor?
They grow larger
They grow larger as hormone levels surge in the months around breeding, and the bulkiest males tend to win the most matings.
Amazon forests hold nearly every species, mostly in ranges that sit side by side without overlapping. One outlier lives far away in Central America.
Q 24Squirrel monkey species are sorted into two groups by the white arches above their eyes, named after which styles?
Gothic and Roman
Gothic and Roman are the labels: a pointed white arch over each eye marks one group and a rounded arch the other, a split first drawn in 1964.
Q 25Which pair of foods makes up most of the diet of wild squirrel monkeys?
Fruit and insects
Fruit and insects come first, but squirrel monkeys will also take eggs, flowers, buds and the occasional small animal.
Q 26Besides the pet trade, common squirrel monkeys have been captured in large numbers for which other purpose?
Medical research
Medical research has used squirrel monkeys widely, including in aerospace tests. Despite the captures, the common squirrel monkey is not considered threatened.
Q 27In undisturbed forest, a single troop of squirrel monkeys has been seen with as many as how many members?
About 500
About 500 is the upper figure for these giant troops, which can break up into smaller bands. A typical group numbers between 12 and 100.
Q 28Roughly how much does a full-grown male squirrel monkey weigh?
About 1 kg (2 lb)
About 1 kg (2 lb) is the top of the usual range for males, and females are lighter still, at 500 to 750 grams.
Q 29When its usual meals run short, the common squirrel monkey turns to drinking which sugary liquid?
Nectar
Nectar tides the common squirrel monkey over lean spells. It also gets most of its water from what it eats, topping up from tree holes and puddles.
Q 30Saimiri oerstedii, the Central American squirrel monkey, was named in honor of a naturalist from which country?
Denmark
Denmark was home to both men involved: Johannes Reinhardt, who gave the species its name, chose it to honor his fellow biologist Anders Sandøe Ørsted.