Before They're ... Trivia Quiz

Answer:

There are a lot of different animals whose young are given the same name. The chosen terms always refer to a young animal, but you may need more information to know what kind of animal it is!

When I say pup or puppy, you probably think of the familiar domesticated dog. I might also have been talking about a baby armadillo, bat, beaver (also sometimes called a kit), dolphin, gerbil, guinea pig, hamster, seal, shark, or wolf.

A kit might be a shortened form of kitten, which is the common name for a baby cat. It is also the name of a baby beaver (also sometimes called a pup), ferret, fox (also sometimes called a pup or a cub), rabbit, skunk, squirrel, or weasel.

A cub is a young bear, and could also be a cheetah, hyena, leopard, lion, panda, raccoon or tiger.

Most of the animals called cattle, such as those raised to provide beef or milk for human consumption, have young called calves (the plural of calf). So do antelopes, camels, elephants, giraffes, hippopotamuses, moose, reindeer, rhinoceroses, whales and yaks.

A baby horse (whose mother was a mare and whose father was a stallion) is called a foal if you don't know its gender; if you know it is female, it is called a filly, while a young male is called a colt. The same applies for other young equids, such as zebras and donkeys.

The young of many marsupials (animals with pouches) are called joeys. This includes kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats and possums.

Similarly, the term cria is used to refer to the young of the closely-related natives of South America that include the llama, alpaca and vicuna.

A kid is a young goat (or human, in colloquial reference), a lamb is a young sheep, and a fawn is a young deer. The parents of a fawn are called a stag and a doe.

The names used here describe animals that at least somewhat resemble the adult into which they develop. We have not looked at the names used for animals that completely change shape, such as the caterpillar that turns into a butterfly, or the tadpole that becomes a frog.

A few other animals have special names for their young that are somewhat unusual. A platypus is such an unusual animal that it is not surprising its young have an unusual name, puggle. That is also the name for a dog one of whose parents was a pug, and the other a beagle.