Animals on Flags Trivia Quiz

Answer: A parrot

The lovely sisserou parrot, a.k.a. the imperial Amazon, has a purple face and breast and vibrant green feathers. They only live in small patches of the island of Dominica. Sadly, due to habitat displacement caused by human settlement and worsened by hurricanes, their numbers have been reduced to about 50 members.

Some efforts have been made to protect sisserous. Before Hurricane Maria made landfall in 2018, a group called the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP) actually shipped some parrots to Germany for their protection. This was highly controversial however, as they did so without consulting the Dominican government and never returned the birds. Many ornithologists criticized the ACTP for having "removed hundreds of rare parrots" from Australia, Brazil, St. Lucia and St. Vincent, and claimed its director had no scientific credentials. I can only hope that these symbols of tropical beauty don't become a symbol of tragedy instead.

(Quoted from "BirdsCaribbean welcomes renewed support for Dominica's native parrots" - Dominica News Online)

Answer: Vicuņa

A vicuņa appears on the dexter side of the coat of arms, which in turn appears on the Peruvian flag (the crest is used during government-sanction functions). Vicuņas are small members of the llama family which form the ancestral lineage of the domesticated alpaca. Vicuņas are much smaller than alpacas, but their wool is even softer. You can only collect vicuņa wool by catching a wild vicuņa and harvesting the small yield of precious fiber, which takes three whole years to regrow. One source calls it "the priciest fabric you can purchase legally." A high-end online sock store retailed a pair of 20% vicuņa socks for $661!

There's also another animal connection in Peru's flag: the bars are said to symbolize the parihuana, the Andean flamingo endemic to Peru. Parihuanas have dark pink secondary feathers flanking their pale bellies while in flight, resembling the tricolor.

Alpacas are domesticated vicunas, and they do produce wool, but it's not nearly as valuable as vicuņa wool, and alpacas are far larger. The culpeo is a type of coyote that lives in the Andes and prey, ironically enough, on flamingos and vicuņas. Guemals, or huemuls, also known as the South Andean deer, live in the mountains of southern Chile and Argentina. A huemul appears in Chile's coat of arms, but not its flag.

(Source: "9 Most Expensive Fabrics Ever Produced" - Rarest.org)

Answer: Mexico and Montenegro's eagles are both holding something.

The Mexican flag has a rattlesnake in its beak, based on the legend of the founding of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. In the story, settlers were told by the sun god Huitzilopochtli to find an eagle, his symbol, atop a cactus holding a snake, the symbol of the wise god Quetzacoatl. European settlers misunderstood the symbolism and interpreted the snake as a devilish "serpent," as if the bird were destroying sin, but this is incorrect.

The Montenegrin flag features a double-headed eagle, an ancient symbol revered in both the Turkic and Holy Roman empires, as well as many Slavic countries today. The eagle is holding two symbols of Christianity, a scepter and a globus cruciger (an orb with a cross on top). Albania's flag also features a double-headed eagle as does Serbia's. Slovakia's, however, features a coat of arms with a cross on it.

The Egyptian flag has the "Eagle of Saladin," one of their national symbols. Saladin was the first sultan of Egypt. His eagle, since destroyed, appeared on the Cairo Citadel whose construction he ordered. Iran's flag has no eagle.

Zambia's flag is definitely based on the African fish-eagle. The "Zimbabwe bird," a heavily stylized glyph of a stone-carved bird that appears on flags, coats of arms, and coins, is based on artifacts found at Great Zimbabwe city. No one is sure which eagle it represents, though the African fish-eagle is again a contender. Steller's sea-eagles live in Russia.

Answer: False

The countries are Montenegro, Spain, Sri Lanka, Fiji, and Croatia. (The lions on Croatia's flag are heraldic "leopards," which are lions, but that's a different can of worms...)

I'm kind of shocked to learn that, besides Fiji, there is some evidence that lions have lived in ALL these places before. A jawbone from a "Ceylon lion" was claimed to be found by Paulus Deraniyagala, a naturalist who lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Because of the lion's narrower jaw, he argued the Ceylon lion was its own subspecies. On comparison with other lion specimens this was found to be unconvincing. It's possible lions did live in Sri Lanka at one point, though: they roamed most of India and may have been able to reach the island.

Lions definitely did live in Macedonia as recently as 100 B.C., and could be found around Athens during the time of Aristotle. I've seen maps that give the range of lions extended as far north as southern Montenegro. As for Spain, cave lions (Panthera fossilis) did once live all across the Mediterranean, including into Spain. These massive felines could grow to 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, the largest cats ever after the sabertooths of South America, and are the descendants of modern lions. There are other claims that fossils of modern lions have been found in Iberia, but studies have not shown them do be different from P. fossilis remains.

Answer: A boar's tusk

Boar's tusks are a common ornamental item throughout Melanesia but especially on Vanuatu. There, the boar's tusk is not only worn as a symbol of esteem, it is also used as a currency. A boar's tusk with a prominent, circular or spiraling curve, like the one seen on Vanuatu's flag, is particularly prized. Inside the tusk are the fronds of a plant Vanuatuans call "namele," a type of cycad, which symbolize peace. Cycads look similar to palm trees, but are actually more closely related to conifers and the gingko tree.

Lest I mislead you, you should know the *Eastern* Pacific giant conch lives along the west coast of South-Central America. In the Andes, they sometimes blow them to make noise.

Answer: Croatia - goat, martin, and leopards

I forgive you if you didn't think Croatia's flag had ANY animals on it. The crown of shields above the main checker pattern contains five shields total. These shields are widely used in Croatia, and are more common than regional flags. They include, from left to right, a blue shield with a crescent representing a historical Croatian crest, followed by four for historical regions: red and blue stripes for the coastal Republic of Dubrovnik; three leopards' heads for Dalmatia; a goat for Istria; and a sable (black marten) for Slavonia.

(Extremely Pedantic Heraldry Aside: in English heraldry a "leopard" is drawn no differently than a lion except that it is facing right, while a leopard faces the viewer. This distinction has been around before the name "leopard" was given to the spotty guys from Africa.)

The following flags have pairs of animals: Fiji (lion and dove), Mexico (snake and eagle), Andorra (two cows), Moldova (a bull and an eagle), Montenegro (eagle and lion), Bolivia (llama and condor), and Croatia (a martin and a goat). (Not counting humans as animals here, of course, but even if we did, Croatia still has the most.)

Botswana's flag features no animals at all, in spite of its fame as a safari destination.

Answer: Bolivia - Andean condor

The beautiful Andean condor is one of the very largest animals that flies, standing four and a half feet (1.4 meters) tall with a wingspan that can surpass 10 feet (3 meters). Unsurprisingly, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador have made it their national bird, and it features on both Ecuador and Bolivia's flags. The two flags are quite similar. They both feature a horizontal tricolor, with Ecuador using identical colors to Colombia and Bolivia replacing the blue with green. Both place their coat of arms in the center of the tricolor. Chile and Colombia also feature the condor on their national coats of arms, but theirs don't appear on their flags.

As for flags with eagles, Mexico's uniquely identifies a golden eagle, while Kazakhstan has a steppe eagle, both among the many eagles with huge ranges across the steppes of Asia. And as mentioned, Zambia's flag features an African fish-eagle. Other eagles, such as Moldova's, Zimbabwe's, and Egypt's, do not represent a specific species. Of course the double-headed eagles on the flags of Serbia, Albania, and Montenegro aren't a real species, either.

That leaves a few other countries with a unique bird. Fiji's coat of arms has a dove, and Uganda has the impressive gray crowned crane, about which more later. If we then throw in all of the heraldic eagles and double-headed eagles, we get a total of 17 flags with some kind of bird on them, or 20 bird-heads if you prefer.

Answer: Qatar

Much like the Phoenicians, the Qatari used the Murex snail to fashion a dye that ranged in color from purple to red. The harsh sun of Qatar turned the snails' red secretions into a subdued maroon hue. The city of Al Khor in northeast Qatar was the site of dye production as early as 2000 B.C., and in 1932, it was the largest production of purple snail dye in the world.

The tricky part of this question has to do with Qatar's status as a "Reconciled Emirate." Both Bahrain and Qatar share historical ties with the seven Arab Emirates, all being "protected" under the British Trucial System at one time or another. The nine together are symbolized on Qatar's flag, which has nine diamonds.

Most of the Reconciled Emirates' flags featured a similar design with a red field (compare the flag of Bahrain, which is extremely similar to Qatar's, but uses the same red as the other emirates), usually with a white stripe or canton along the hoist. While still under British control in 1932, the British proposed a flag with the same color red as the other emirates. Qatar revised the design to use the Murex snail dye instead. The color of Qatar's flag was slightly lightened in 1971.

Answer: Bhutan

In its native language, Dzongkha, the Kingdom of Bhutan calls itself Druk Yul, "Land of the Thunder Dragon." The monarch of Bhutan holds the official title "Druk Gyalpo," the Dragon King. In Bhutanese mythology, the voice of the druk are said to be the source of thunder. The founder of the Drukpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, Bhutan's main religion, reported seeing nine flying druk while on a pilgrimage, and chose it as the emblem and the namesake of the sect. On the flag, the druk is holding four jewels.

The Thunder Dragon is described as "yu druk ngonm," "turquoise dragon," in Buddhist literature, and the druk on the flag was green in its original 1944 design. This flag was photographed and then reproduced for use by Bhutan's third king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck. Something got lost in translation, and the turquoise dragon was changed to gray. That's how the Thunder Dragon lost his color!

(Source: "The Origin and Description of the National Flag and the National Anthem of the Kingdom of Bhutan.")

Answer: Moldova

Moldova's national coat of arms features the national animal, an aurochs. Aurochs were absolutely massive cattle that inhabited Europe, the Caucuses, India, and parts of China. They are the animals from which our modern cows have been domesticated. The aurochs were domesticated twice, as taurine cattle in the Middle East and as zebu cattle in India. The largest European aurochs exceeded 6 feet in height. Folklore tells that the founding prince of Moldova, Prince Dragos, named the Moldova River after a dog that drowned while chasing after aurochs. The last aurochs died in Poland in 1927.

Uganda's gray crowned crane has a distinctive, and obviously not gray (more gold-colored), crest around a black face. It's striking and its colors make Uganda's one of the most distinctive in the entire world. The bird is extremely widespread in southern Africa, everywhere from dry savannas and marshlands, although it is considered endangered.

The Mexican flag features two animals. Obviously, the golden eagle on top of the cactus is one of the most cosmopolitan, least-concern birds in the world. The rattlesnake in the bird's beak is not a specific species and only superficially resembles actual rattlers.

The African fish-eagle on the Zambian flag is distributed throughout almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, and are least concern. However, they are closely related to the Madagascar fish-eagle, one of the rarest birds in the world. Fewer than 100 breeding pairs survive along the northern coast of Madagascar.