Twenty animal questions, from record-breaking creatures to the strange habits of familiar ones, each with three answers and the fact behind the right one. Play them as a quiz, or read the list with the answers marked.
Pick an answer and the fact behind it appears; the next question waits until you are ready. No clock, no sign-up.
Do you know this one?
Tap an answer, or press 1, 2 or 3; Enter for the next question
The same questions as the quiz, right answer highlighted and the fact under it. Print the page for a quiz night: the print layout keeps the questions and answers only. The Animals topic in Lock&Learn holds 121 facts in all.
What is the biggest cat in the world, and why won't you ever meet one in the wild?
The liger, a lion-tiger cross, is the largest cat of all. A liger is the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger, and it grows bigger than either parent. Males can reach 3 to 3.6 metres long and weigh over 400 kg. They exist only in captivity, because lions and tigers never share a home range in nature.
Source: Wikipedia
Which mountain big cat can growl and mew but never manages a roar?
The snow leopard is a big cat that cannot roar. Unlike lions and tigers, snow leopards lack the throat structure needed to roar, so they hiss, growl and mew instead. Their thick, metre-long tail helps them balance on cliffs and doubles as a scarf they wrap around their face against the Central Asian cold.
Source: WWF
What surprising pattern would you find if you shaved a tiger's fur off?
Shave a tiger and the stripes are still there. A tiger's stripes are marked on its skin, not just its fur. And like a human fingerprint, no two tigers share the same pattern, so researchers can identify individuals in the wild by their stripes alone.
Source: Smithsonian's National Zoo
Whose jaws are powerful enough to crack open a turtle shell?
A jaguar can bite straight through a turtle's shell. Relative to its size, the jaguar has the strongest bite of any big cat. It often kills by piercing the skull of its prey, and it can crunch through armoured turtle shells and thick caiman hide.
Source: Guinness World Records
How far can the sound of a roaring lion actually travel?
A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away. A male lion's roar can carry up to 8 km (5 miles) and reach around 114 decibels. Lions are also the only truly social cats, living in prides where the related lionesses do most of the hunting.
Source: WWF
What kind of animal is a black panther, really?
A black panther isn't actually its own species. "Black panther" is just a nickname for a leopard or jaguar born with an all-dark coat, caused by extra pigment called melanism. Shine a light on one at the right angle and you can still make out its spots.
Source: Wikipedia
Which giant land animal is physically unable to jump?
Elephants cannot get all four feet off the ground. An adult elephant simply can't jump. Its enormous weight and leg bones that point straight down give it no spring, and with its size and protective herd it has no need to leave the ground.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
How do elephants stay in touch across miles of open savanna?
Elephants send rumbles too low for humans to hear. Elephants produce deep rumbling calls below the range of human hearing. These low sounds travel through the ground, and distant elephants can pick them up through sensitive receptors in their feet.
Source: Stanford Medicine
What exactly are an elephant's tusks made of?
Elephant tusks are just enormous overgrown teeth. Tusks are elongated incisor teeth that keep growing throughout an elephant's life, roughly 17 cm a year. They are made mostly of ivory, which is really dense dentine, the same material inside your own teeth.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Who shattered the belief that only humans make tools?
Jane Goodall caught wild chimps making and using tools. In 1960 Jane Goodall watched a chimpanzee named David Greybeard strip leaves from a twig and use it to fish termites out of a mound. It was the first record of a wild animal making a tool, forcing scientists to rethink what sets humans apart.
Source: Jane Goodall Institute
Which of our close relatives is the biggest primate alive today?
The gorilla is the largest primate on Earth. Gorillas are the largest living primates, with adult male silverbacks weighing up to around 200 kg. They are also among our closest relatives, sharing roughly 98% of their DNA with humans.
Source: Wikipedia
Which animal wears the brightest red-and-blue colors of any mammal?
The mandrill is the most colorful mammal on the planet. Mandrills, the world's largest monkeys, sport vivid red and blue skin on the face and rump. The brighter a male's colors, the more dominant and attractive he tends to be.
Source: Wikipedia
What color is a polar bear's skin beneath all that white fur?
Under its coat, a polar bear's skin is black. Polar bear hairs aren't actually white, they're hollow and colorless, and scatter light to look white. Underneath, the skin is black, which helps the bear soak up the sun's warmth in the freezing Arctic.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
How does a panda hold a bamboo stalk without a real thumb?
Giant pandas grip bamboo with a bone that acts as a thumb. Pandas have an enlarged wrist bone, a "pseudo-thumb," that works like an opposable thumb for gripping bamboo. They need the extra dexterity because they spend around 12 to 15 hours a day eating.
Source: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Which is the world's smallest bear, and how does it reach honey buried deep in a hive?
The smallest bear has a tongue almost a foot long. The sun bear of Southeast Asia is the world's smallest bear, but its tongue can stretch up to about 25 cm (nearly a foot). It uses that tongue to reach deep into tree hollows and beehives for honey, earning it the nickname "honey bear."
Source: Wikipedia
What is the biggest rodent on Earth, and where does it live?
The world's largest rodent is a giant swimming guinea pig. The capybara of South America is the largest living rodent, growing up to 1.3 metres long and weighing as much as 79 kg. This laid-back herbivore is a strong swimmer and can hold its breath underwater for up to five minutes.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Which nearly hairless burrowing rodent seems to defy the normal rules of aging?
This wrinkly rodent lives for decades and rarely gets cancer. Naked mole-rats can live up to 37 years, about ten times longer than you'd expect for a rodent their size. They are also strikingly resistant to cancer, which is why scientists study them for clues to healthy ageing.
Source: University of Cambridge
Why are a beaver's front teeth bright orange?
Beavers have orange teeth reinforced with iron. A beaver's incisors get their orange color from iron woven into the enamel, which makes them tough enough to gnaw through wood. Those teeth also never stop growing and self-sharpen with every bite.
Source: McGill University
Despite its name, what family does the killer whale belong to?
The killer whale is really the largest dolphin. The orca, or killer whale, is actually the biggest member of the dolphin family. Old sailors called it a "whale killer" for hunting large whales, and over time the name flipped to "killer whale."
Source: NOAA Fisheries
How does a dolphin rest without ever drowning?
Dolphins sleep with only half their brain at a time. Dolphins rest one half of the brain while the other half stays awake, keeping one eye open and rising to breathe. This lets them stay alert to danger and keep breathing, since a dolphin's breathing is under conscious control.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
This page has 20, each with three answers and the fact that settles it. They are the first 20 of the 121 facts in the Animals topic of Lock&Learn, which holds the rest.
Yes. Read them out, print the page (the right answers are marked) or play the quiz on a shared screen. Each question has one right answer and two plausible wrong ones, and the fact under it gives you something to say after the reveal. Please do not republish the questions elsewhere.
Every fact names its source under the answer, from space agencies and museums to encyclopedias and published research. Lock&Learn writes each one as a teaser question with three answers, and the fact that settles it.
Install Lock&Learn, then touch and hold your Lock Screen, tap Customize, tap the widget area and choose Lock&Learn. A question waits on every screen-wake; you guess, tap, and reveal the verified fact behind the answer. Pick the topics you like and the widget rotates through them.
Yes. Lock&Learn is free on iOS: every topic opens with a free preview and another question unlocks daily. Lock&Learn+ is an optional upgrade that opens every topic in full.