Thorny Devil
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free Thorny Devil trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The thorny devil looks like something a fantasy illustrator dreamed up: a small desert lizard covered from nose to tail in spikes. It is also one of the most placid reptiles in the Australian outback, and nearly everything about how it survives is odd, from the way it drinks to the way it walks. This quiz turns the best thorny devil fun facts into multiple-choice questions. They cover its diet, its tricks for finding water, its defences against predators, eggs and hatchlings, where it lives, and the story behind its scientific name, Moloch horridus. Every answer comes with a short explanation. It suits curious kids, students working on a reptile project, and anyone who knows the animal as the thorny dragon. No expertise is needed: most questions can be reasoned out.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The thorny devil, a spiky lizard of the Australian outback, eats almost nothing but which insects?
Ants
Ants are virtually all a thorny devil eats, and it is especially fond of very small ones. Tiny stones and sticks found in its stomach were probably being carried by the prey.
Q 02What does the spiny knob on the back of a thorny devil's neck look like to a predator?
A false head
A false head is what the knob imitates, and the thorny devil shows it off by tucking its real one down between its front legs. The decoy is only soft tissue.
Q 03Which effect, the one that draws water up a paper towel, moves water across a thorny devil's skin?
Capillary action
Capillary action pulls water along tiny grooves between the scales, so a thorny devil can drink just by standing in a puddle. The grooves work even uphill, against gravity, along its legs.
Q 04Besides relying on its spines, what does a thorny devil do to its body when a predator disturbs it?
Puffs up with air
It puffs up with air, inflating like a little puffer fish, which makes the spiky body even harder to swallow or handle.
Q 05What happens to a thorny devil's pale yellow and red colouring when the desert air gets cold?
It turns darker
It turns darker, shifting rapidly to a drab olive whenever the lizard is cold or alarmed. Once it heats up and is active again, the pale shades return.
Q 06How does a thorny devil usually walk when it crosses open ground looking for food or a mate?
In slow, jerky steps
In slow, jerky steps is how it moves, often freezing mid-stride with one foot still off the ground. The stop-start rhythm probably helps conceal a lizard caught in the open.
Q 07Approximately how many of its tiny insect prey can a single thorny devil lap up in one day?
About 1,000
About 1,000 a day is a typical estimate, taken one at a time with a short, sticky tongue. The prey is low in nutrition, so the lizard has a large stomach to hold it all.
Q 08Which popular pet lizard belongs to the same family, the Agamidae, as Australia's thorny devil?
Bearded dragon
Bearded dragon and thorny devil are both agamids, a family of more than 500 species spread across Africa, Asia and Australia. The frilled-neck lizard is another member.
Q 09Which spiky North American reptiles look much like thorny devils but are only distant relatives?
Horned lizards
Horned lizards share the thorny devil's squat, armoured body and specialist diet, yet the two groups grew their spines separately. Only the American ones have bone inside their horns.
Q 10The thorny devil's genus name, Moloch, recalls a fearsome demon in which 17th-century epic poem?
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost casts Moloch as a fallen angel smeared with blood, the image the zoologist had in mind when he named the lizard in 1841.
Q 11The 'horridus' in the thorny devil's scientific name is a Latin word whose first meaning is what?
Rough or bristly
Rough or bristly is the main sense of horridus, a nod to the spines, and 'dreadful' is only a secondary meaning. The animal is one of the most placid reptiles in the outback.
Q 12A thorny devil's spines are almost entirely boneless; which tough material are they made of?
Keratin
Keratin forms the spines, so even the big knob on the neck is boneless. CT scans that were expected to show bone inside the spines found only two small bumps on the skull.
Q 13What are newly hatched thorny devils thought to eat before they dig their way up to the surface?
Their own eggshells
Q 21The network of tiny grooves covering a thorny devil's body channels water toward which spot?
The corners of its mouth
The corners of its mouth are where the grooves end, and a gulping movement of the jaw then draws the water in. A thorny devil can gain as much as a gram of water in a single rainstorm.
Q 22Thorny devils sometimes shelter overnight inside loose tussocks of which spiky Australian grass?
Spinifex
Spinifex tussocks and nearby shrubs give the lizards cover at night and through the midday heat, and they retreat there when a predator comes near. The grass belongs to the genus Triodia.
Q 23Thorny devils also live in a southern scrub belt named after which many-stemmed eucalypts?
Mallee
Their own eggshells seem to be the first meal: a biologist who opened two nests after hatching found no shells left. He knew of no other lizard or snake that does this.
Q 14After laying her eggs, what does a thorny devil mother do to the nest before leaving?
Seals and smooths it over
She seals and smooths it over, packing the tunnel so carefully that no trace of the digging remains. One mother in a field study did the whole job in the night.
Q 15Which long-legged ground bird, also called the plains turkey, is known to prey on thorny devils?
Australian bustard
The Australian bustard was abundant where nine thorny devils were radio-tagged in 1995, and two tagged males soon vanished, most likely eaten by the big birds.
Q 16A field biologist once found a whole thorny devil in the stomach of which big Australian reptile?
Sand goanna
Sand goanna was the answer to a mystery: a thorny devil he was studying vanished, and six months later he found that very lizard inside the monitor he had collected. Its spines had not pierced the stomach.
Q 17Thorny devils are so well camouflaged that one field biologist learned to find them by doing what?
Following their footprints
Following their footprints over soft ground is the trick, and even that fails once the tracks enter a bush. One lizard sat unseen between two searchers standing a couple of metres apart.
Q 18How does the IUCN Red List rate the thorny devil, which ranges across most of arid Australia?
Least Concern
Least Concern is the official rating, though scientists remain unsure of its true numbers. Relying on a single kind of prey leaves local populations exposed when desert habitat is damaged.
Q 19Moloch, the thorny devil's genus name, was first the name of what kind of ancient figure?
A Canaanite god
A Canaanite god called Moloch, usually pictured as a hideous beast, lent his name to the genus. The lizard itself is a harmless eater of tiny insects.
Q 20Thorny devils shovel what onto their backs so that their skin can soak up extra moisture?
Damp sand
Damp sand can supply water when there are no puddles to stand in: the lizard rubs its body against it and the skin wicks the moisture away.
Mallee country in southern South Australia and the south-west is the lizard's second home, far from the deserts of the interior.
Q 24Thorny devils barely move during which two stretches of the Australian year?
Midsummer and midwinter
Midsummer and midwinter are both downtime: the lizards hardly stir in January and February or in June and July. On the hottest days they retreat into shallow underground shelters.
Q 25Thorny devils walk to one regular spot each morning, away from where they sun themselves and feed, to do what?
Defecate
They go there to defecate: each lizard keeps its own toilet site, marked by neat piles of glossy black pellets. It often returns to the same place several days running.
Q 26Why are thorny devils, which rely on outside heat, often run over by cars?
They bask on warm roads
They bask on warm roads because, as ectotherms, they cannot make their own body heat. A road is also the easiest place for a person to spot one, since off it they blend into the ground.
Q 27Alongside bobbing up and down, which other display does a male thorny devil use to court a mate?
Leg-waving
Leg-waving and bobbing make up the male's courtship routine. In one observed attempt, the unwilling partner threw him off her back with a quick sideways roll and walked away.
Q 28Thorny devils keep growing well into adulthood; what is the longest they are thought to live in the wild?
About 20 years
About 20 years is the likely limit in the wild, an estimate from a keeper whose captive lizards lived up to eight years and were still growing in their fifth.
Q 29Which term describes how thorny devils and distantly related American lizards came to look alike?
Convergent evolution
Convergent evolution means similar pressures produced the same solution twice. By body measurements, the two lookalikes are closer to each other than to their own nearer relatives.
Q 30How does a thorny devil usually catch the tiny insects that make up its entire diet?
Waits by their trails
It waits by their trails, usually close to the cover of a shrub, and laps up passers-by one at a time. Because each one is so small, it can take dozens of them a minute.