State Animals Trivia
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6correct to beat the crowd
49 free State Animals trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every US state has an official bird, and most have added mammals, reptiles, fish and amphibians chosen by legislatures and, often, schoolchildren. These state animals trivia questions cover the cardinal's seven states, the western meadowlark's six, the deer that represents ten, the bat that stands for Washington, D.C., and the newer picks like Utah's Gila monster and Pennsylvania's hellbender. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which bird is the state bird of seven states, more than any other?
Northern cardinal
Northern cardinal. In spring, cardinals guard their territory so fiercely that they attack their own reflections in windows and car mirrors.
Q 02Which bird represents six states, including Kansas, Montana and Wyoming?
Western meadowlark
Western meadowlark. Audubon gave it the species name neglecta, Latin for overlooked, because explorers after Lewis and Clark had passed over so common a bird.
Q 03Which bird is the state bird of five states, including Texas and Tennessee?
Northern mockingbird
Northern mockingbird. Its song made it so prized as a cage bird in the 1800s that trapping probably made it scarce along parts of the East Coast.
Q 04Which bird only became the official US national bird in December 2024?
Bald eagle
Bald eagle. On the Great Seal since 1782, it nearly vanished from the lower 48 before the 1972 ban on DDT helped it recover.
Q 05Which animal is the national mammal of the United States?
American bison
American bison. Hunting cut herds of tens of millions to a few hundred animals by the late 1800s, and in 2016 Congress made the survivor the national mammal.
Q 06Which bird has been Hawaii's state bird since 1957?
Nene
Nene. Hunting and introduced predators left only about 30 of these Hawaiian geese in the wild by the 1950s, before decades of conservation work brought them back from the brink.
Q 07What is the state bird of New Mexico?
Greater roadrunner
Greater roadrunner. It can fly but rarely bothers, sprinting at 15 miles per hour or more to run down lizards and snakes.
Q 08Which bird was adopted as Alaska's state bird in 1955?
Willow ptarmigan
Willow ptarmigan. It trades its brown summer plumage for snow white each winter to hide from predators, keeping only its black tail feathers.
Q 09Which bird on Louisiana's flag and seal is its official state bird?
Brown pelican
Brown pelican. Pesticides wiped it out of the 'Pelican State' in the 1960s, so Louisiana rebuilt its flock with young birds brought in from Florida.
Q 10Which state bird is named after a colonial lord's heraldic colors?
Baltimore oriole
Baltimore oriole. Maryland's state bird wears the black and orange of Lord Baltimore, the colony's proprietor, and the city's baseball team was later named after the bird.
Q 11Which bird is the state bird of both Idaho and Nevada?
Mountain bluebird
Mountain bluebird. It can't dig its own nest hole, so it relies on old woodpecker cavities and, these days, on nest boxes that people put up.
Q 12Which bird is Oklahoma's state bird?
Scissor-tailed flycatcher
Scissor-tailed flycatcher. The male courts with a spectacular aerial display, climbing and diving sharply while his long forked tail opens and closes.
Q 13Which desert bird, the largest of its family in the United States, is Arizona's state bird?
Cactus wren
Cactus wren. It nests among cactus spines that keep predators away, and it rarely drinks, getting nearly all its water from its food.
Q 21Which bird was designated New Hampshire's state bird in 1957?
Purple finch
Purple finch. Despite the name, the male is not really purple: his head and breast are closer to raspberry red or old rose.
Q 22Which bird is the state bird of Missouri and New York?
Eastern bluebird
Eastern bluebird. Its numbers fell sharply in the mid-1900s as nesting holes grew scarce, then climbed back once people lined roadsides with birdhouses built for it.
Q 23Which bird became California's state bird in 1931?
California quail
California quail. It lives in sociable flocks called coveys that strut about on the ground and burst into a short, explosive flight only when disturbed.
Q 14Which bird was named Minnesota's state bird in 1961?
Common loon
Common loon. It also swims on Canada's one-dollar coin, which Canadians instantly nicknamed the loonie.
Q 15Which bird has been Colorado's state bird since 1931?
Lark bunting
Lark bunting. The male stakes out his patch of prairie with a song flight, climbing fast and then singing all the way down as he glides back to earth.
Q 16What is the state bird of Vermont?
Hermit thrush
Hermit thrush. Walt Whitman gave its song a central part in 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd', his elegy for Abraham Lincoln.
Q 17Which bird is Pennsylvania's official state game bird?
Ruffed grouse
Ruffed grouse. The male advertises his territory by standing on a log and beating his wings so fast that the air itself makes a drumming sound.
Q 18Delaware's official bird, adopted in 1939, is which strain of gamecock?
Blue Hen Chicken
Blue Hen Chicken. In the traditional account, Delaware soldiers in the Revolutionary War staged cockfights with these birds, then fought so fiercely themselves that they were likened to them.
Q 19What is the state bird of Georgia?
Brown thrasher
Brown thrasher. Atlanta's NHL team, which began play in 1999, was named the Thrashers in its honor, before the franchise moved in 2011 and became the Winnipeg Jets.
Q 20Which bird is the state bird of both Massachusetts and Maine?
Black-capped chickadee
Black-capped chickadee. Massachusetts names the species, but Maine's 1927 law says only that the state bird 'shall be the chickadee', without saying which kind.
Q 24Which bird is the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin?
American robin
American robin. Early settlers named it after Europe's robin redbreast because of its orange chest, though the two birds are not closely related.
Q 25Which bird did Washington schoolchildren pick as state bird in 1951?
American goldfinch
American goldfinch. Lawmakers called the 1951 vote to break a tie: children had picked another bird in 1928, and a women's clubs' poll in 1931 had chosen the goldfinch.
Q 26Alabama's state bird, the yellowhammer, is which species?
Northern flicker
Northern flicker. 'Yellowhammer' became a nickname for Alabama's Confederate soldiers in the Civil War, and later for the state itself.
Q 27Which member of the raccoon family is the state mammal of Arizona?
Ringtail
Ringtail. Miners and settlers kept it in their cabins as a mouser, which earned it the nickname miner's cat, though it is no cat at all.
Q 28Which animal did Florida's students elect as the official state animal in 1982?
Florida panther
Florida panther. The students chose the most endangered of all the state's symbols, a cat hunted to the edge of extinction, and Florida's NHL team later took its name.
Q 29Which animal is the official state small mammal of Texas?
Nine-banded armadillo
Nine-banded armadillo. A single fertilized egg splits into four, so a mother almost always gives birth to identical quadruplets.
Q 30Which animal is an official state symbol of Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and several other states?
White-tailed deer
White-tailed deer. It is named for the white underside of its tail, which it raises and flashes as a warning when it senses danger.