Turtles & Tortoises
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
98 free Turtles & Tortoises trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Turtles & Tortoises trivia questions with answers. Did you know that some turtles can hold their breath for up to 7 hours? Test your knowledge of these incredible shelled reptiles with our comprehensive 98-question quiz. From sea turtles to ancient tortoises, you'll explore the amazing world of chelonians.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many recognized species of sea turtles exist today?
7
7 is the usual count, though some researchers make it eight by treating the Pacific's black turtle as a species of its own rather than a kind of green turtle.
Q 02What is the top section of a turtle's shell called?
Carapace
The carapace is the domed upper shell, fused to the turtle's backbone and skeleton, which is why a turtle can never crawl out of its shell.
Q 03Bishop Tomás de Berlanga stumbled on the Galápagos and its giant tortoises in 1535 while drifting off course to where?
Peru
Peru was his destination: sailing from Panama to settle a quarrel between conquistadors, his ship was carried west by currents, and he reported tortoises big enough to carry a man.
Q 04What determines the sex of most turtle hatchlings?
Incubation temperature
Incubation temperature decides it: warmer sand hatches mostly females and cooler sand males, so a warming climate could tip whole nesting beaches toward daughters.
Q 05What was the name of the last known Pinta Island tortoise?
Lonesome George
Lonesome George was found alone on Pinta in 1971 and lived four more decades in captivity; every attempt to breed him with females of related tortoises failed, and his line ended with him in 2012.
Q 06Which sea turtle species has a shell historically prized for making jewelry and hair combs?
Hawksbill sea turtle
Hawksbill sea turtle shell is the 'tortoiseshell' of old combs and jewelry; the trade hunted the species almost to extinction before most countries banned it in the 1970s.
Q 07What is the primary diet of adult green sea turtles?
Seagrass and algae
Seagrass and algae make up the adult diet, the only plant-eating menu among sea turtles; young turtles in the open ocean also eat animal prey and turn to grazing as they grow.
Q 08What is the bottom part of a turtle's shell called?
Plastron
The plastron is the turtle's flat belly plate; the word came into English via French from the Italian piastrone, a breastplate, which is exactly what it resembles.
Q 09In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, which turtle wears a blue mask?
Leonardo
Leonardo and his brothers nearly got Japanese names; when none sounded right, the creators opened an art history book and borrowed four Renaissance masters instead.
Q 10Which is the smallest of the sea turtle species?
Kemp's ridley
Kemp's ridley, about 2 feet long and under 100 pounds, is the smallest sea turtle; it is named for Richard Kemp, a Key West fisherman who sent a specimen off to be identified.
Q 11Because Galápagos tortoises can live for months without food or water, which crews stacked them alive in ships' holds as fresh meat?
Whaling crews
Whaling crews took more than 100,000 tortoises between the 1780s and 1860s, since the animals stayed alive for months in the hold, and the trade helped empty some islands entirely.
Q 12What are nesting sea turtles thought to read to find their way back to the beach where they hatched?
Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic field: each stretch of coast has its own magnetic signature, and the leading idea is that hatchlings imprint on it and steer back to it as adults years later.
Q 13What do leatherback sea turtles primarily eat?
Jellyfish
Q 21What is each keratin plate on a turtle's shell called?
Scute
Scutes are made of keratin, like fingernails; pond turtles shed them one at a time as they grow, while tortoises never do, simply adding new layers underneath.
Q 22What is unique about the leatherback compared with other sea turtles?
It lacks a bony shell
It lacks a bony shell: leathery skin stretches over a mosaic of small bones instead, and that flexible back can give under pressure, helping it dive deeper than any hard-shelled turtle.
Q 23In British usage, a small turtle that lives in fresh or brackish water is traditionally called what?
A terrapin
Leatherback sea turtles feed almost exclusively on jellyfish. Their throats contain backward-pointing spines that help them swallow slippery prey.
Q 14The alligator snapping turtle is native to rivers draining into which body of water?
Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico rivers are its only home; so many were trapped for their meat in the 1970s that numbers crashed, and states across most of its range now protect the turtle.
Q 15The alligator snapping turtle catches fish by wiggling a worm-like lure found where on its body?
On its tongue
On its tongue: the turtle lies still on the river bed with jaws open and twitches the lure until a curious fish swims right in, a trick biologists call aggressive mimicry.
Q 16What is the mass nesting event of sea turtles called, particularly associated with olive ridley turtles?
Arribada
Arribada nights can bring tens of thousands of females ashore together; the sand gets so crowded that later arrivals dig up eggs laid by earlier ones.
Q 17Which famous naturalist studied the giant tortoises of the Galápagos Islands in 1835?
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin was put on the trail by the islands' acting governor, Nicholas Lawson, who boasted he could tell at a glance which island any tortoise had come from.
Q 18A turtle excluder device is an escape hatch built into the trawl nets that catch which seafood?
Shrimp
Shrimp nets used to drown sea turtles; a grid of bars in the net's neck now steers a turtle out through a flap while the catch slips through, and US boats have had to carry one since 1987.
Q 19Some turtles spend winter under pond ice without surfacing, absorbing oxygen from the water through which body part?
Their rear end
Their rear end: the cloaca is rich in blood vessels and can pull oxygen straight from the water, enough to keep a cold, barely ticking turtle alive under the ice.
Q 20Harriet, a Galápagos tortoise long said to have sailed on HMS Beagle, spent her last years at which TV naturalist's zoo?
Steve Irwin
Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo was Harriet's home when she died in 2006, aged about 175; DNA tests showed she came from an island the Beagle's naturalist never visited.
A terrapin, a word borrowed from an Algonquian language of Virginia, is British English for a small freshwater turtle; Americans mostly keep it for one species of the coastal salt marshes.
Q 24Roughly how deep has a leatherback sea turtle been recorded diving?
4,000 feet
4,000 feet is roughly the record: a tagged leatherback reached about 1,280 metres, deeper than most whales and seals ever go and far beyond any hard-shelled turtle.
Q 25In the TMNT franchise, what is the name of the turtles' rat sensei?
Master Splinter
Master Splinter raised the four turtles as his sons and taught them ninjutsu; the comics made him a ninja's pet rat, but the 1987 cartoon turned him into the ninja himself, mutated.
Q 26What is the scientific order that includes all turtles and tortoises?
Testudines
Testudines comes from testudo, Latin for tortoise, itself from testa, 'shell'; a shell built into the skeleton is the one thing every member of the order shares.
Q 27The gopher tortoise is the official state tortoise of which U.S. state?
Florida
Florida named the gopher tortoise its state tortoise in 2008; the deep burrows it digs shelter more than 350 other species, which is why biologists call it a keystone species.
Q 28Which organ lets sea turtles get rid of the excess salt from the seawater they drink?
Tear glands
Tear glands: a salt gland behind each eye pumps out concentrated brine, which is why nesting females often look as though they are weeping.
Q 29As of 2025, Jonathan, a giant tortoise on Saint Helena, holds which Guinness World Records title?
Oldest known living land animal
Oldest known living land animal: Jonathan hatched around 1832, a date worked out because he was already full-grown when he reached Saint Helena in 1882; in 2022 he also became the oldest tortoise on record.
Q 30In which tradition does the world rest on a giant turtle's back?
Hindu mythology
In Hindu mythology, the god Vishnu took the form of a giant turtle (Kurma) to support Mount Mandara. Many cultures, including some Native American traditions, also feature world-turtle cosmology.