Names of young animals Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hyena

Young gerbils, opossums and spiders are known as pups, joeys and spiderlings respectively. Lions, tigers and other big cats as well as bears and foxes are among the animals whose offspring, like the hyenas', can be called cubs. The collective name for a group of hyenas is a clan or cackle.

The main species of hyenas are the brown, the striped and the spotted or laughing hyena, all three of whom are efficient hunters as well as scavengers. The young of the spotted hyena, the largest and most numerous species, may be unique among mammals in being genetically predisposed to siblicide. There are normally two cubs in a litter and they are born with developed canine teeth. Even when very young, they are likely to attack and fight each other until one is killed when food is not quickly provided by the mother.

Answer: Spat

Eggs laid by such creatures as toads and frogs are called spawn while fry is a general name used for a young fish. Softshell or soft-shell refers to a type of turtle or a newly-moulted crab.

After it is fertilised, usually in the water surrounding the oyster bed, an oyster's egg develops into a free-swimming larva or veliger which eventually grows a protruding 'foot' gland, when it becomes known as a pediveliger. The pediveliger then settles against a solid object, often another oyster's shell, and the gland secretes an adhesive substance that permanently attaches the larva to it. The young oyster is then known as a spat and matures into an adult oyster over the next year. At first the adult is male but becomes female during the next two to three years and may change sex several times more during its lifespan.

Answer: Rabbits

An ephyra is the name for a young jellyfish, while a baby antelope is a calf and a young pig can be called a piglet or shoat. Not only rabbits but also weasels and skunks give birth to kits, sometimes also called kittens. Known as a colony, drove or bevy among other names, a group of rabbits lives in an underground warren where the does can have several litters of four to six kits in a year.

Rabbits are not normally known for mass attacks on humans but one well-documented case exists. In 1807 his chief of staff, Louis Alexandre Berthier, organised the purchase and release of thousands of rabbits to provide prey for a rabbit-shooting party led by the Emperor Napoleon. Unfortunately, the rabbits were tame ones and apparently associated the approaching hunting party with keepers bringing food. Rather than fleeing from them as wild rabbits would, these hungry rabbits charged unstoppably towards Napoleon, who was leading the hunters, and he eventually had to return to his carriage and drive away.

Answer: True

Codling is the most usual name for a young cod, though the term sprat is also sometimes used for one that is about half-grown or larger.

Adult cod are deep sea fish but swim to shallower waters to spawn and the female can lay up to six million eggs in one spawning. The fertilised eggs rise to the ocean surface and form part of the plankton layer there, where all but a very small percentage are eaten by other sea dwellers. Those that do hatch at first feed on this plankton themselves as well as on worms and small shrimps. As the codlings develop they gradually swim out to deeper waters and descend nearly to the sea bed, where they live when adults, feeding on small fish, squid and shellfish.

Answer: Poult

Grice is the name of an extinct breed of pig while squeaker and tumbler can be used to describe a young pigeon and a young mosquito respectively. Like the young of other game birds such as ptarmigans, young grouse are called poults and a group of grouse is known as a covey.

Different species of grouse are distributed across the northern hemisphere and live in moorland, forests and hills. Mostly about the size of a large chicken, they nest on the ground where the hen normally lays from six to fifteen eggs in a clutch. The young birds leave the nest very soon after hatching and at first feed mainly on insects and other small invertebrates. As they mature though, the poults gradually adopt the adult diet of vegetation such as seeds and leaves.

Answer: Calf

Although a potto is a type of lemur, both pup and infant are names used for a number of different young animals. Moles and hamsters, for example, give birth to young known as pups, while monkeys and gorillas (as well as humans) produce offspring called infants. Cows, elephants and giraffes are some of the other animals that, like the hippopotamus, give birth to babies known as calves.

The group name for hippopotami (or hippopotamuses) is a herd or a bloat, and it can consist of from five to about thirty animals. There are two species of hippopotami/amuses - the common and the pygmy. The common hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal after the elephant and the white rhinoceros by weight and, at about the same average size as this rhinoceros, the joint second largest by size after the elephant. Hippopotami/amuses are most closely related to whales and often give birth under water so that, sometimes with its mother's assistance, the newborn calf must swim to the surface to take its first breath.

Answer: False

Turtling refers to the hunting of turtles and a baby turtle is actually called a hatchling. For at least some species, the temperature of the sand in which its egg incubates influences the hatchling's sex, with a higher temperature producing more females. Although a female turtle lays many eggs, the young turtles are very vulnerable to predators such as birds, sharks and large fish, so that only about one to two of every thousand hatchlings survive to reach adulthood.

Known collectively as a bale, turtles are the only reptiles to have a shell and their many species vary greatly in size. The leatherback (sea) turtle is the largest, measuring six to seven feet/1.8 to 2.1 metres from beak to tail, while both the bog or Muhlenberg turtle and the musk turtle are under four inches/ten centimetres long. It has been found that turtles have existed for over two hundred million years, so predating not only mammals and birds but also other types of reptiles including lizards.

Answer: Wild duck

The young of most, if not all, birds can be called chicks but, like a baby partridge, a young wild duck can also be known as a flapper. Once they have grown out of their chick stage, young domestic chickens are known as pullets or cockerels (depending on their sex) before becoming hens or cocks/roosters. There are a number of collective names for a group of wild ducks including a raft and a paddling.

The three main types of wild ducks are diving ducks (such as pochards), sea ducks (such as scoters), and dabbling ducks (such as gadwalls). Wild ducks generally lay somewhere between eight and fifteen eggs in a clutch, with the exact number varying between species. Almost as soon as they have hatched, the mother leads her young to the nearest water and specifically to the feeding areas there, and the baby ducks are able to forage for themselves.

Answer: Otters

Zebras, as well as horses and donkeys, give birth to foals whereas young frogs are known as tadpoles, polliwogs or froglets. Baby ferrets are known as kits, sharing the term with young badgers and polecats, among others. Like a baby coyote, a young otter is called a whelp and it may also be known as a pup or cub.

A group of otters, of which there are thirteen species, is known as a raft or romp, among other terms. As its name suggests, the sea otter lives mainly in water whereas the other species spend most of their time on land. Otters live in holts, where the female generally gives birth to an average of two to three young. The whelps only begin swimming at about two to three months old and stay with their mother for about a year.

Answer: All of these

When first hatched a baby salmon is known as an alevin. After a few weeks the alevin leaves its nest among gravel in a river bed and is then called a fry. At something over a year old it develops dark markings on its sides and becomes known as a parr. It changes appearance again at between two and five years of age, when the markings fade and its skin becomes silvery. The smolt, as it is then called, swims a long distance to deep sea feeding grounds.

Usually between one and four years later the adult salmon returns to its river of birth to spawn. Those returning after a year and two years are known as grilse and spring salmon respectively, while those remaining longer are termed multi-sea winter salmon. After spawning the salmon are known as kelts and some die shortly afterwards whilst others return to the feeding grounds.