Zoological Zebras Trivia Quiz

Answer: Carpet sharks

The zebra shark is one of the species included in the order Orectolobiformes, whose members are commonly known as carpet sharks. These large fish are actually named for their intricate markings (said to resemble the patterns on carpets) rather than their propensity to be found laid out on the floor. Other members of the order include nurse sharks, whale sharks and wobbegongs.

Oddly enough if you spot a large adult shark covered in black-and-white stripes then it definitely won't be a zebra shark. In fact, the zebra shark could be more accurately described as a 'leopard shark' as its body is covered in small dark spots. Its other key distinguishing features are five elongated ridges running lengthwise down its upper body and a very long caudal (tail) fin. Juvenile zebra sharks look very different to the adults and do have the distinctive striped appearance that you'd expect given their name.

Answer: Australia

The zebra finch doesn't really bear much resemblance to a zebra. Both males and females have predominantly brown and grey plumage, but the male can be easily distinguished by its bright red beak (the female's is orange), orange cheek feathers and chirpy song (the female is physically unable to sing). The male does however have some black-and-white striped feathers on its lower face and upper breast.

Wild zebra finches are found across most of continental Australia and on some nearby islands, including East Timor and parts of Indonesia. They mainly live in grassland areas with some tree cover and have a life expectancy of up to five years (which can be extended to up to 15 years when kept in captivity). They are social birds and mated pairs will often remain faithful to each other for several years. The species is also notable for the way in which young males learn and copy the song patterns displayed by the adults, yet also somehow manage to develop their own unique song that remains unchanged for the rest of their lives.

Answer: True

The zebra spider (or zebra back spider) is a member of the Salticidae family of jumping spiders, which catch their prey by stalking and jumping on them rather than spinning a nice web and hoping that their dinner wanders into it. The zebra spider is capable of creating silk, but it uses it a bit like a climber uses a safety rope; it attaches the end of the silk to the surface it's standing on, before it jumps off, so that it has the means to climb back up if it misses its prey.

Zebra spiders are black with a series of white hairs that create a zebra-like striped appearance. They are common across the northern hemisphere and about 0.5-1 centimetre in length. However, their propensity to jump through the air and abseil down from heights could make them as unpopular to an arachnophobe as other larger, but more sedate, spiders.

Answer: Antelope

Duikers are small antelopes of the genus Cephalophus that are found in various areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. The zebra duiker is not black or white in colour (it's actually a reddish-brown) but it does have a set of distinctive stripes that curve around the back half of its body.

The native habitat of these animals is a fairly restricted area of western Africa, mainly in the neighbouring countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea. They predominantly live in rainforests, although they can be found in other forested areas and feed on leaves, seeds, fruits and other vegetation.

Answer: Young zebrafish are transparent, so scientists can look inside them easily

While the ethics of conducting scientific research on any living animal can be a controversial topic, there is no doubt that zebrafish have several physical traits that make them very useful test subjects.

The fact that young zebrafish are transparent allows scientists to study the effects of various experiments without having to kill and dissect them. It has also been estimated that around 70% of zebrafish genes have a counterpart in the human genome (if it was over 97% that would've meant that we were more closely related to zebrafish than chimpanzees) so researching the function of zebrafish genes can generate important information about both the human genome. Zebrafish also grow extremely fast - an embryo can develop into a juvenile fish within days - allowing multiple generations of fish with different gene mutations to be developed and studied. However, there are no known gene-mutating substances present specifically in their stripes.

Zebrafish are native to the rivers and lakes of the Himalayas, but their pretty, shimmering stripes have made them a popular aquarium fish around the world.

Answer: In the sea

The Neritidae family includes a range of both freshwater and saltwater sea snails, most of which are native to the southern hemisphere. Various individual species are known as 'zebra snails' because of the distinctive patterns on their shells; while some display the black-and-white stripes you might expect, others have stripes with different colours or different patterns entirely.

Some examples include Puperita pupa, a black-and-white striped snail found in the waters of the Caribbean Sea, and Neritina natalensis, which is a popular aquarium snail thanks to its propensity for eating the algae that builds up on the side of fish tanks.

As a matter of interest, the edible snails served up in French restaurants as escargot are land snails.

Answer: Passionflower

The name zebra longwing reflects the black-and-white striped appearance of the adult butterfly. It is native to most areas of South and Central America and can also be found in the southern United States, particularly Texas and Florida (it was named as the official state butterfly of Florida in 1996). Its larvae feed exclusively on three species of passionflower: the corky-stemmed passionflower, two-flower passionflower and (in the United States) the yellow passionflower. Passionflowers in general are commonly associated with butterflies of the genus Heliconus and have evolved defensive measures against their caterpillars called trichomes. However, the zebra longwing caterpillar is particularly adept at circumventing these traps.

While lavender, marjoram and sweet william are all good plants for attracting butterflies into your garden, none of them are native to the Americas, so are not associated with the zebra longwing.

Answer: Okapi

The okapi is sometimes known as the zebra giraffe because it is both a member of the giraffe family and has distinctive white stripes on its upper legs and rump that are distinctly reminiscent of the zebra. In the wild, it can only be found in the tropical canopy forests of areas of the African nation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which probably explains its other alternative name - the forest giraffe.

The okapi was given 'endangered' status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2013. The decline in its population numbers resulted from a combination of factors, including its limited range, hunting and habitat destruction.

An oryx is a type of antelope, an onager is a Asian wild ass and the olingo belongs to the same family as the raccoon.

Answer: Moray eel

Gymnomuraena zebra is commonly known as the zebra moray (a type of eel) thanks to the thin black-and-white stripes that stretch along the entire length of its body. It is native to shallow waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and fairly widespread across these regions. Don't be fooled into looking for one in the Moray Firth area of Scotland as the name 'moray' derives from a Latin term meaning eel rather than the Scottish place name.

The zebra moray tends to spend its day coiled up in a handy crevice on an underwater reef or rocky seabed, before coming out at night to hunt crabs and other crustaceans as well as molluscs or sea urchins. There are over 200 known moray eels and the zebra moray is relatively unusual in limiting its diet to this list of shellfish - most other species of these eels are known for hunting small fish, octopuses and squid as well.

Answer: Carnot's zebra

The three species of zebra are the plains zebra (Equus quagga), the mountain zebra (Equus zebra) and Grévy's zebra (Equus grevyi). The latter of these was named after Jules Grévy, who was the President of France from 1879 to 1887. Sadi Carnot was Grévy's successor in that role and did not give his name to a stripy equine.

The plains zebra is the most common and widespread of the three species, with a range that stretches from Ethiopia in the north and east to Namibia in the south and west. It is similar in appearance to the mountain zebra (which can be found in Angola, Namibia and South Africa) but can be differentiated by the fact that a mountain zebra's stripes don't continue around its underbelly. Grévy's zebra is much taller, has narrower stripes and is found only in Ethiopia and Kenya.