Naming Animals Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sow

These words are most often used in connection with domestic pigs, where the boar is a male capable of breeding and a sow is a female which has already had one litter of piglets. A female who hasn't given birth is called a gilt.

Other animals called boar and sow are bears and guinea pigs. Hedgehogs are also called by these names.

Answer: Pen

The names of cob and pen are used exclusively for male and female swans. The young are called cygnets. The cob name comes from Middle English, when it was spelled as 'cobbe' and meant the 'leader of a group'. The origin of the name of pen for females is unclear.

Swans are the largest of the water birds and, despite their size, are good at flying.

Answer: Doe

Many members of the deer family are called bucks and does. Among them are antelopes and ibex. Some smaller animals are also called by these names, such as mice, rabbits, hares and hamsters.

Some species of deer, for example red deer, are called stags if they're male and hinds if they are female.

Answer: Mare

Stallions and mares are the adult male and female animals in the equine family. You will normally hear the expressions when people are talking about horses but they can also refer to wild animals in the same family, like zebras.

Some sources mention donkeys, but they are more commonly called a jack and a jenny.

Answer: Ewe

The words apply to the male and female of sheep, animals which are farmed mainly for meat and their wool. Young sheep are called lambs and a big group of sheep is called a flock.

Other more unusual words are wether, which means a ram which has been surgically prevented from breeding and gimmer for a ewe which hasn't yet given birth to a lamb.

Answer: Vixen

The male fox is called a dog, or dog fox sometimes, while the female is a vixen. Males are known as dogs as they come from the canine family, the same as domestic dogs. They are sometimes referred to as 'Reynard' because of a book written in the middle ages about a trickster known as 'Reynard the Fox'.

The name of vixen is also ancient. In Old English female foxes were called 'fyxen' which became corrupted into vixen.

Answer: Nanny

These are the names given to male and female goats and they are the only animals with these names. If you've ever heard the story of 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff', and their problems with a troll you most likely knew this.

Females are called nanny goats with the name said to have come from a nickname for Ann. The name of nanny for a goat dates back to at least the early 1700s.

Answer: Queen

The name tom is the normal name for a male cat while the female is called a queen. The young are called kittens, which is a name given to the young of other animals, including the smallest types of wild cats such as bobcats. The name for the female comes from an old name for cats giving birth, called 'queening'.

A male turkey is also known as a tom - the female is a hen, while many insects, such as bees and ants, have a queen who is the most important animal in the colony.

Answer: Hen

The word cock is mostly used for male birds, like chickens, although they can also be referred to as roosters. Females are known as hens. You will sometimes hear the word cock attached to other bird species, such as in the rhyme about 'cock robin'. Both names appear in the names of the peacock (male) and peahen (female).

Perhaps more surprisingly, the names cock and hen are also used for male and female lobsters and sometimes for the salmon, a type of fish.

Answer: Cow

These terms are probably best known for domestic cattle, including the cows which give us milk. Several other types of animal are known as bulls and cows, though, including related animals like buffaloes and yaks.

Several African mammals are known as bulls and cows too, such as elephants, rhinoceroses and giraffes. Sea animals like walruses are described using these names as well.