Nature questions in a general quiz are rarely biology. They are about
superlatives, collective nouns, classification and the animals with a
surprising fact attached — which is a much smaller and more predictable body of
material than the subject implies.
Superlatives and collective nouns
The fastest, largest, longest-lived, most venomous: these are asked
constantly and the answers are stable. Collective nouns are the other staple — a
murder of crows, a parliament of owls, an unkindness of ravens — and they are
almost free marks, because there are perhaps forty in circulation and setters
recycle them.
Classification questions ask which group an animal belongs to, and the good
ones exploit the cases where the common name misleads: which "fish" are mammals,
which "bears" are not bears, which birds cannot fly. Related, and much loved by
setters, are the young-animal and male/female names.
The animals with a fact
A handful of species carry a fact so quotable that they are asked about far
more than their prominence warrants: the
axolotl,
the tardigrade,
the immortal jellyfish,
the octopus,
the coelacanth — a fish known from
fossils and then found alive — and
the cicadas that emerge on prime-numbered
years. The waggle dance and
crows using tools are the standard
behaviour questions.
Plants are asked more narrowly: national flowers, what a plant is used for,
and the record holders — the tallest tree, and
Pando, arguably the largest organism on
earth.
'Tulip mania' — often called the first speculative bubble — gripped which country in the 1630s?
Answer The Netherlands (the Dutch Republic)
Baby kangaroo?
Answer Joey
The daffodil is the emblem of which UK cancer charity?
Answer Marie Curie
Van Gogh painted it obsessively, and it is the national flower of which country?
Answer Ukraine (the sunflower)
Fastest land animal?
Answer Cheetah (~110 km/h)
Only mammal capable of true flight?
Answer Bat
Largest animal ever to have lived?
Answer Blue whale
Tallest animal?
Answer Giraffe
Baby seal?
Answer Pup
In the Wars of the Roses, which houses wore the red rose and the white?
Answer Lancaster (red) and York (white)
Only bird that can fly backwards?
Answer Hummingbird
A tomato is botanically a…?
Answer Fruit (a berry, in fact)
Fastest animal of all?
Answer Peregrine falcon (diving, 300+ km/h)
Largest bird (and fastest on two legs)?
Answer Ostrich
Collective noun for crows?
Answer a murder
Collective noun for owls?
Answer a parliament
Collective noun for frogs?
Answer an army
Which flower is England's national emblem, and gave its name to a 15th-century civil war?
Answer The rose
Collective noun for dolphins?
Answer a pod
Which flower, associated with funerals and Easter, is dangerously toxic to cats?
Answer The lily
Collective noun for bears?
Answer a sloth (or a sleuth)
Which frilly flower is the traditional buttonhole and Mother's Day flower?
Answer The carnation
National animal of Scotland?
Answer The unicorn
Baby deer?
Answer Fawn
Collective noun for monkeys?
Answer a troop
Baby goose?
Answer Gosling
Baby hare?
Answer Leveret
Which aquatic flower is the national flower of India and sacred in Buddhism and Hinduism?
Answer The lotus
Collective noun for lions?
Answer a pride
Collective noun for rhinos?
Answer a crash