Do You Recognize This Mammal? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hare

There are more than 30 species of hare although, confusingly, some of them are called jackrabbits.
Although similar to rabbits, there are numerous differences. A young hare is called a leveret and is born fully furred with their eyes open whereas a young rabbit, called a kit or kitten, is both blind and hairless. Rabbits live underground in warrens or burrows, whereas hares build their nests above ground. Hares are generally larger with longer ears. Rabbits are often kept as pets whereas hares have not been domesticated.
The pictured animals is a mountain hare, also sometimes called a tundra hare, variable hare, white hare, snow hare or alpine hare as it has adapted to life in both arctic and mountainous regions.

Answer: Wallaby

There are more than 40 species of wallaby including rock-wallabies, brush wallabies, hare-wallabies, dorcopsis, pademelon and the Monjon. Smaller and not so fleet-footed as their close cousins, the kangaroo and the wallaroo, which are found mostly on the great semi-arid plains of Australia, wallabies prefer to make their home in the rugged, heavily-timbered regions.

Some species of wallaby have even adapted physically -- the rock wallaby, for example, has feet like mountain goats that enable them to grip rock rather than sink into the soil. A group of wallabies is called a court, troupe or mob. (A group of kangaroos is also a mob.) Like many other marsupials, young wallabies are called joeys.

Answer: Jaguar

The jaguar can be found in the wild across Mexico, throughout Central America and as far south as Paraguay. A stalk-and-ambush predator and the very top of the food chain, the jaguar has the most powerful bites of all felines. Indeed, only the spotted hyena exerts more pressure with its bite.
The largest male jaguars can weigh in at as much as a lioness or tigress, around 350 pounds. They have the shortest tail of all the big cats, from 18-30 inches. Although powerful and heavily muscled, jaguars have shorter legs than most big cats, making them adept at climbing, crawling (stalking) and swimming.
The superb photograph shows two young jaguars having a great time playing in the water at Singapore Zoo.

Answer: Raccoon

Some homeowners consider the raccoon a pest, and both hunting and vehicular accidents account for a high number of deaths. Although raccoons have been known to live well into their twenties in captivity, their life expectancy in the wild is a rather meager 2-3 years.
Studies have shown that raccoons are intelligent on a par with many monkey species and also that they have remarkably long memories. Raccoons are perhaps the world's most omnivorous animal: they eat just about anything, from worms and insects, to fruits and nuts, birds, bird eggs and small mammals, and even fish and crabs.

Answer: Seal

Seals range enormously in size. The smallest is the Baikal seal, averaging around three feet in length and weighing in at around 100 pounds. It is found in Lake Baikal in Russia and is the world's only exclusively freshwater seal. The largest, pictured here, is the southern elephant seal, with males growing to a length in excess of 16 feet and weighing in at more than 7,000 pounds. Larger than the average polar bear, this is the world's largest living carnivore.

The difference in size between male and female southern elephant seals is larger than in any other mammal species -- males are usually five or six times heavier than females. Southern elephant seals usually dive to depths of between 1,300 and 3,300 feet to hunt fish and squid, often staying underwater for more than 20 minutes at a time.

They can also dive deeper than any other air-breathing non-cetacean (whales, dolphins and porpoises), with dives recorded at almost 7,000 feet.

Answer: Badger

The badgers' close relatives include the otter, the wolverine, the weasel and the polecat. It is also a member of the superfamily that includes the skunk, the raccoon and the red panda. What may surprise you, though, is that all members of this group contain a rather unexpected close ancestor -- members of the seal family.
The badger's diet varies depending on where he lives, but mostly consists of worms and insects, the eggs and young of ground-nesting birds, and roots and fruit. They also eat small mammals and reptiles and in the UK badgers are the only animals that prey on hedgehogs. In Spain, they have been known to devastate local rabbit populations. In Africa, the honey badger is particularly fond of honey, porcupines and even venous snakes such as the puff adder.
"Badger-baiting" was outlawed in the UK in 1835, but hunting is still common in many countries. The German word for badger is "dachs", and the dachshund was originally bred specifically for hunting badgers.

Answer: Sloth

There are four surviving species of three-toed sloth and two of the two-toed variant, all of which are slow-moving, tree-dwelling natives of the jungles of South and Central America. There were more members of this family, but the ground-welling sloths, some of which grew as large as elephants, are now extinct.
The pictured animal is the Hoffmann's two-toed sloth, named after the early 19th century German naturalist Karl Hoffmann. Heavily built with a shaggy fur coat, they live high in the canopy of the rainforests at elevations as high as 10,000 feet.
Although sloth means 'lazy', these animals move slowly to conserve energy as their diet consists almost entirely of leaves from which they get few nutrients. Their metabolic rate is typically half that of other similarly-sized mammals. Claws as long as 3 inches enable sloths to hang upside down from the trees, and they spend their entire lives (eating, sleeping and even mating) in this position. Indeed, dead sloths are often found still hanging from the trees.

Answer: Okapi

Sometimes also called the zebra giraffe because of its striped markings, the okapi is the only close relative of the giraffe. Indeed, their body is not dissimilar to that of the giraffe, although of course without the long neck. Like the giraffe, they also have a long, sticky, blue-grey tongue.

Their diet, though, is more varied that the giraffe, with the okapi preferring low-lying leaves, ferns, fruit and fungi, many of which would be highly poisonous to humans. Only discovered in the latter 19th century, today they number less than 20,000 in the wild, although they can also be found in more than forty zoos around the world.

Indeed, the photograph of these three okapi was taken at Marwell Zoo in southern England.

Answer: Macaque

The pictured group are Japanese macaques, known as "Nihonzaru" (simply meaning 'monkey') in their homeland. Equally happy on the ground or in trees, the macaque is also an excellent swimmer.
A very intelligent species, they are also playful and have been observed rolling snowballs for no reason other than fun. Omnivorous, macaques eat leaves, roots, insects, fruit, seeds, ferns, fungi, invertebrates and even soil or fish. They also collect seeds and nuts during the summer and store them for winter consumption.

Answer: Orangutan

Literally translated from the Malay, orangutan means 'person of the forest'. Their closest relative is the largest known primate, Gigantopithecus, a native of China, India and Vietnam which became extinct around 100,000 years ago. Although they can live for over 30 years even in the wild, orangutans are an endangered species, primarily due to increasing human incursion into their very limited domain: more than half of their natural habitat has been destroyed in just the last 20 years. Orangutans live mostly on fruit, although they will also eat leaves, bark, honey and even insects and bird eggs.