Mammals Around the World Trivia Quiz

Answer: Spiny Anteater

Although the diet of the spiny anteater consists of ants and termites, they are not closely related to the true anteaters found in the Americas. Their only close relative is the duck-billed platypus -- the platypus and the four species of spiny anteater are the only egg-laying mammals surviving today.

Although only medium-sized, they have short, very strong limbs with powerful claws, ideal for digging. They feed by ripping open anthills and using their long, sticky tongues to collect their prey. They have no teeth.

Answer: Sloth

They were named sloths because they tend to be slow-moving. All six species of sloth that survive today are tree-dwelling, although there were once aquatic sloths ground sloths, some of which are reputed to have been as large as elephants. The six remaining species are either three-toed or two-toed and their closest living relative is the anteater, with whom they share their claws.

A sloth's diet consists mostly of shoots, leaves and nettles, although they are also known to eat insects, small reptiles and even birds. Their tongues are specially developed to reach as far as 12 inches out of their mouths in order that they can collect leaves that would otherwise be out of reach. Up to two-thirds of a sloth's body weight is its stomach contents, which can take up to a month to digest.

Answer: Dugong

The dugong is the only surviving species of a family that was once quite diverse. The slow-moving, 9-meter long Stellar's sea cow, its closest modern relative, was hunted to extinction within 30 years of its discovery (in 1741) by Europeans.

Dependent on seagrasses, dugongs live primarily in protected bays, mangrove swamps and in the waters around large inshore islands. Dugongs have no dorsal fin and no rear limbs, and can be easily distinguished from their close cousin, the manatee, by their fluked (dolphin-like) tail or by their down-turned snouts.

The name 'dugong' means "Lady of the Sea" in Malay. They are also sometimes called sea cows, sea camels or sea pigs.

Answer: Hyrax

These thickset, herbivorous mammals weight in at between five and eleven pounds, and grow to anywhere between 12 and 28 inches long, yet anatomically they are close relatives of the elephant. There are four species of hyrax and the pictured one is a rock hyrax, or rock badger. The hyrax lives in groups of between 10 and 80 and they forage as a group, often posting sentries to keep watch for predators, of which there are many: pythons, cobras, adders, leopards, wild dogs and eagles.

They rarely range further than fifty yards from their refuge.

Their diet of choice is a wide variety of broad-leafed plants, although they are also known to eat insects and grubs.

Answer: Loris

Closely related to the lemur, there are two genera of loris, the slow loris and the slender loris. The one pictured here enjoying lunch at the Emirates Park Zoo in Samha, Abu Dhabi is one of the two species of slender loris.

Their diet consists of insects, small reptiles, shoots of plants and fruits. Unfortunately some Sri Lankan cultures believe that all parts of the loris have medicinal properties, so poaching has led to a steady decline in their numbers. They are also smuggled to appease the exotic pet trade.

Answer: Capuchin

Capuchin monkeys sleep wedged between high branches at night and, with the exception of a midday siesta, spend the rest of the day foraging for a wide range of food: fruits, nuts, seeds, buds, insects, spiders, birds' eggs and small vertebrates. In their turn, capuchins are also on the menu for plenty of predators too: jaguars, cougars, coyotes, snakes, crocodiles and raptors, particularly the harpy eagle.

Answer: Colugo

Growing to between 12-14 inches in length and weighing as much a 4.5 pounds, Colugo are comparable in size to a possum, making them particularly large for a tree-dwelling mammal. Their most distinctive anatomical feature is the membrane between their limbs that enables them to glide long distances between trees. Of all the gliding mammals, they have evolved the greatest adaptation for flight. Even their feet are webbed to increase their surface area.

The herbivorous colugo forages at night and spends most of the day hanging inconspicuously from the branches of a tree. Endangered by habitat loss, the colugo is also hunted for its meat and fur. It also accounts for 90% of the diet of the Philippine eagle.

Answer: Babirusa

There are four species of babirusa, all of them native to Indonesia. They are members of the same biological family as domestic pigs, various species of wild pigs and the warthog.
Male babirusa are notable for the unusual growth of their upper canines, which penetrate the skin and grow backwards over the face towards the forehead.

Although hunting of babirusa is illegal in Indonesia, poaching has rendered all four species as endangered. Commercial logging has also led to habitat loss, making them even more exposed to hunters.

Answer: Muntjac

The world's oldest known species of deer, muntjac fossils dating back millions of years have been found throughout Europe. Today, there are 16 extant species of muntjac remaining, all of them native to southern Asia.
The pictured species is the Reeve's muntjac which is native to China but can also now also be found wild in England, descended from escapees from Woburn Abbey in the 1920s. Indeed, it is now estimated that muntjacs are the most numerous of all wild deer species in the UK.

Answer: Mongoose

Most members of the Herpestidae family are a species of mongoose, and our pictured one is no exception: this is the banded mongoose. Members of most mongoose species are solitary creatures, but the banded mongoose is an exception, living in large colonies similar to its close cousin, the meerkat.

Although they prey mostly on beetles and millipedes, they will also eat frogs, lizards, small snakes, ground bird and the eggs of both birds and reptiles. They hunt by smell, then dig their prey out using their long claws.