Q 01/05

For several years an Indian elephant calf eats what from its mother to gain bacteria that help digest plants?

A) Her saliva

B) Her dung

C) Shed skin

D) River mud

Answer · why

B) Her dung

Her dung carries nutrients and the gut bacteria a calf needs to break down plants, even though the youngster starts on solid food at about six months.

Q 02/05

The Elephant Whisperers, a 2022 film about a couple raising orphaned Indian elephant calf Raghu, won which prize?

A) A BAFTA

B) A Grammy

C) An Emmy

D) An Oscar

Answer · why

D) An Oscar

An Oscar for best documentary short went to the film in 2023, a first for India in that category; its crew spent almost five years living beside the k...

Q 03/05

Which Indian leader sent an elephant named Indira to a Tokyo zoo in 1949 after Japanese children wrote asking for one?

A) Jawaharlal Nehru

B) Mahatma Gandhi

C) Vallabhbhai Patel

D) Rajendra Prasad

Answer · why

A) Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru named the elephant after his daughter, the future prime minister Indira Gandhi, and she lived at the zoo until 1983.

Q 04/05

Which activity can take up as many as 19 hours of an Indian elephant's day?

A) Sleeping

B) Bathing

C) Foraging

D) Travelling

Answer · why

C) Foraging

Foraging fills most of the day because an adult gets through up to 150 kg of leaves, grass, bark and fruit every 24 hours.

Q 05/05

Which animal is Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god, often shown riding as his mount?

A) A mouse

B) A swan

C) A buffalo

D) An owl

Answer · why

A) A mouse

A mouse is the unlikely mount of so heavy a god, and Hindus revere the Indian elephant itself as one of his forms.