Match the Baby to the Parent Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cub

An aardvark cub has a sow and a boar for parents. This medium-sized African animal comes with a long snout similar to a pig's, and this is used to sniff out any likely meals. Mostly though it prefers ants and termites. The aardvark's common name is earth pig, derived from the fact that, when not out on its nocturnal searching for food, it lives in burrows dug into the ground. An interesting feature of this creature's teeth is that they're not covered in enamel.

This sees their teeth eroding away in a continual pattern of loss and re-growth.

Its vocalisations consist of little soft grunts when foraging for food, bleating when frightened, and loud grunts as it approaches the door of its burrow. "Hi, honey, I'm home!"

Answer: Spat

Mr and Mrs Oyster have children known as spats. The family lives in saltwater environments, where, if they're wise, they'll keep a wary eye out for humans who consider slurping down the slithery creatures that reside within their hard protective mantles a great delicacy (shudder). Oyster is a name given to any member of the family of clams and molluscs, and, interestingly, most of these have the ability to produce a pearl. Don't get excited though, for most of those created are worthless. Pearl oysters are the creatures that produce the much sought after valuable gems, and these creatures can grow to a rather impressive size. References state that the largest pearl oyster is about the size of a dinner plate.

Oysters create their pearls by covering an intruder - such as a grain of sand - that has made its way past the mantle into the soft insides, with a protective layer of nacre, and then successive layers of that lovely substance are added to this over time, until the perfect translucent pearl has formed. It's a miracle really. Wow, this is amazing: A single female oyster usually produces one hundred MILLION eggs every year. She releases these into the water, where the father's sperm, floating hopefully nearby, attaches itself to them. After that process, those fertilised eggs, now known as spats, either sink down into a suitable site on the sea floor, or attach themselves to other places such as mature oyster mantles nearby, and begin to develop.

Answer: Pup

Bats are the only mammals capable of long distance flying. Other mammals described as having the ability to fly are simply only gliding for short distances. The front legs of a bat include large webbed, spooky-looking wings, but describing them as such is the fault of all those ridiculous horror movies and television shows that portray vampires and Draculas in this fashion. Only one bat species, contrary to all horror shows, feasts on human or other mammalian blood, while two species of bat drink bird's blood. All other bats eat either insects or fruit. The poor little things have had a bad press over the years. Far from being a threat to your jugular, these little creatures benefit us instead by helping pollinate plants, dispersing seeds and consuming nasty biting mosquitoes and the like.

Interestingly, bats seldom can be seen in wet weather. That's because they rely on echolocation during flight, and rain interferes with that ability. When giving birth to pups, these are usually only produced one at a time. This is because it is too difficult for the mother to fly if pregnant with more than one. After birth, she will feed her offspring until its wings have fully developed and it can fly and seek out food on its own. This clever little mother also possesses the ability to delay pregnancy or store each foetus in order to time its birth for the most productive food growing seasons.

Answer: Kit

The South American chinchilla looks like a cute little mouse, which is hardly surprising, as it is a rodent. It was named after the Chincha native people who once lived in the Andes region of this continent. High altitudes are the type of climate in which this lovely little creature with its thick and soft fur lives. Amazingly, each hair follicles on its little body sprouts an average of sixty hairs, but alas, it is that fur that has seen the little chinchilla almost hunted to extinction by man. Today, it is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Killed mercilessly to produce coats for man, it cost 150 chinchilla lives to produce one full length coat for a human - it's disgraceful. Today most chinchillas slaughtered for their fur are bred in captivity, but in spite of this, 90% of the remaining wild species vanished in the first fifteen years of the 21st century alone because that hunting relentlessly continues. It's just too cruel.

Compared to other rodents, chinchillas take a lot longer to produce their kits, some three months longer in fact. When the babies are born, however, they are already covered in their fur and their eyes usually open immediately. It's not really advisable to try to keep a chinchilla as a pet. Because they're naturally high altitude creatures, they require a great deal of work, dental care, and temperature control for their comfort. Even if the temperature is carefully monitored, they are prone to convulsions if they become over-heated or if their diet is unbalanced. They also like to take dust baths several times a week by rolling in ground-up pumice rock dust. This of course is produced by volcanos - so you'd have to find and move to an active high volcano in the Andes or the Himalayas to maintain maximum comfort for your little chinchilla. Impossible? Then why not release your little chinchilla back into the wild instead. Somewhere cold and safe. Somewhere they can live happily and free and, hopefully, completely unthreatened by man.

Answer: Nymph

Dragonflies and damselflies are often confused. The three main differences between the two are that the damsel is much smaller, keeps her wings folded neatly to her sides when not flying, and her movements are dainty and fluttering. The larger dragonfly holds his wings out like an aeroplane when not flying and is a very agile in the air. Interestingly it takes the dragonfly nymph several years to reach maturity and during that time, it lives in the water. It is considered adult only when it can fly competently, but from that period only lives for a few weeks. In Japan and China dragonflies are a form of traditional medicine, while Indonesians actually eat them. Uneasy flies the head that wears a crown? A female adult is known as a queen, and the male as a king or a drake.

The male of these little creatures is quite aggressive, particularly when defending its territory or protecting the female carrying its sperm. If a rival male defeats the papa-to-be, the rival then uses his penis as a kind of shovel to dig out the deposited sperm in the female (gardening with a vengeance) and then deposits his own in its place. This could occur several times, so by the time the poor little female finds a suitable spot under the water to deposit her eggs, she's so exhausted that the male often has to pull her back out. Altogether, dragonflies are quite fascinating as you can see.

Answer: Chulengo

Guanacos are small camelids found in South America, mostly along the west coast. Standing at about a metre high at the shoulder, these pretty little creatures move around in small groups numbering about ten adults. The majority of each small group is comprised of females with their babies (known as chulengos) - and one bossy male. He will fight viciously with other males that attempt to muscle in on his territory during mating season. Unattached males form their own larger group of fifty or more. These are made up of young male chulengos that are chased out of the family groups once they reach one year of age. Poor little things.

If guanacos are threatened, they warn each other with high cries before fleeing. Males with families will stay at the rear of their groups to protect them for as long as they can, so they're really quite heroic in spite of ruling the roost. Like other camelids, guanacos also spit when angry or threatened. Another similarity is the thicker skin around their necks, because the neck is the area where predators such as cougars and jaguars attack them.

Answer: Pup

Though the mother guinea pig is a sow and the father a boar, baby guinea pigs, rather surprisingly, are called pups. Originating in the South American Andes, these small animals served three purposes on this continent for centuries, long before European settlement and still today in some cases. They are a ready source of food when bred domestically, are used in folk medicines (you don't want to know how), and also once played an important part in the religious ceremonies of the original people who lived in this area of the world. In fact, they're said to be so tasty, and breed so prolifically, that some governments are trying to encourage their production as a food source in other parts of the world. Oh, how could they! Currently, in Western societies, instead of chomping into the utterly charming little creatures, we keep them as pets instead.

Guinea pigs aren't very good at climbing but can swim really well. They are prone to paw infections known as bumblefoot. When excited they tend to hop up and down (this is known as popcorning), and, when frightened, will either freeze in the one spot for ages, or, in a kind of group panic, will stampede. They also have a rather impressive range of different sounds to express different feelings. These include a high whistling sound called a wheek when excited, purring when contented, rumbling when angry, chutting and whining if chasing or being chased, teeth chattering to warn of danger, high squeals or shrieks if in pain or frightened, and chirping when stressed. The little pups also chirp when hungry. There are any other interesting snippets about these fascinating animals, but too many to include in here.

Answer: Kid

Nanny and billy ibex have offspring called kids. That's because an ibex is a wild goat. Usually found in mountainous areas of the world, this animal is very skilled at climbing. Goats, in general, are most useful animals. Not only do the provide milk while alive, and meat and skin products if slaughtered, they're not at all fussy with what they eat and will consume just about anything. Their skins are so versatile that they can be dense enough to make water containers, or fine enough to create parchment writing surfaces. Astonishingly, the ibex, if the lower branches of trees are strong enough to hold its weight, will even climb them to eat the foliage.

The male ibex usually weighs about 220 lbs but the female is much smaller at 110 lbs. The difference is immediately obvious apart from the size, as the male has a beard as well. Mating takes place in early winter, with the baby kids, usually only one at a time, delivered halfway through spring. Oddly enough, though, the genders split into two separate herds most of the time, with the females in one herd and the males in the other, except, rather sadly, for very elderly males. They are forced out to live on their own, the poor old fellows.

Answer: Fry

A mother octopus, referred to as a hen, gives birth to offspring known as fry. It is presumed the father is known as a cock, but this is not stated. These rather gruesome looking creatures have eight arms spaced evenly around the main part of their bodies. A section cup is found at the extremity of each arm. Interestingly, each octopus has three hearts, and a mouth known as a beak. That beak is the only hard part of its body. Its composed of a substance called chitin. There are about 300 different species of octopus throughout the seas of the world, inhabiting either coral reefs or far out on the ocean floors.

An octopus doesn't have a very long lifespan. Most die around the age of six months, with a few other species living for five years. Reproduction is to blame for this early death for the most part. Males die shortly after impregnating a female, while the hen, so engrossed in taking care of her unhatched eggs, forgets to eat, and dies shortly after the young emerge. That's rather sorrowful, all things considered, and a wonderful example of the maternal instinct. Finally, an octopus is considered to be the most intelligent of all the invertebrates. It can solve quite difficult puzzles, use tools, and its brain, like humans, has the twofold division of short and long term memory. This intelligence is inborn and not learned from their parents because of their early deaths. How fascinating is that?

Answer: Joey

A joey is the baby offspring of a jill and jack opossum. These are marsupial mammals that originated in South America and spread to the northern American continent over time. A distantly related possum can also be found in Australia. Opossums are extremely fit little creatures, so much so that their system is immune to the venom of poisonous serpents such as the rattlesnake and pit vipers. Unlike the Australian possum which usually only births one offspring at a time, the opossum delivers multiple infants. After birth, those who manage to make their way to a teat survive, while the remainder die. The survivors stay attached to the teat for up to four months. At that time, considered weaned, they leave the pouch to face the world.

Wow, this is amazing - and explains the origin of a saying. When threatened by a predator, opossums "play dead" and fall to the ground, mimicking death. This, though, is not a voluntary defence, but completely involuntary instead. They go into a deep faint and then their bodies give off the smell of decay. If however, the opossum is faced with an equal sized foe, the males in particular will fight, but only after they made a type of growling sound as warning. If searching for a mate, both male and female make smacking sounds with their mouths - I can't think why that reminds me of footballers - and if a baby opossum is separated from its mother, it imitates sneezing to call her back. Now, what mother can resist a good sneeze?