Image: Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography / Moment / Getty Images
About This Quiz
There are over 5,400 different kinds of mammals in the world at large, from the tiniest mouse to the most massive whale in the ocean. Mammals have mastered the land, sea and air. And heck, if you remember that humans are mammals as well, we've even mastered space. We're pretty industrious creatures, all things being equal.Â
While you can have an affinity for any animal, and people have managed to bond with pets like snakes or parrots, you can't deny the appeal of mammals. They're warm and cuddly sometimes, and fearsome and intense at others. Mammals provide most of the meat we eat, and they serve as faithful companions. They can be trained to detect illness in humans or narcotics being smuggled. They work in fields, they carry cargo and even humans on their backs and they entertain us and become our friends. All things being equal, mammals are pretty amazing creatures, and they make the world a more interesting place by being a part of it. If you feel like you're any kind of animal lover, then you have to know your tigers from your lions and your bears from your beagles, right? Why not take the quiz and see how many mammals you can identify?
Dingo
Aardwolf
Even though it resembles a hyena and you might think it's some kind of ferocious predator, the aardwolf actually is mich more like an anteater in nature. With its long, sticky tongue, an aardwolf can devour several hundred thousand termites in a single night.
Tapir
Fossa
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Lemur
Kinkajou
Lion tamarin
Aye-aye
Aye-ayes, which have the dubious honor of often being ranked among the ugliest animals in the world if you Google them, have a curious method of hunting. They will chew holes in trees and then use their long fingers to dig out grubs from the holes.
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Otter
Beaver
Beavers live primarily in North America and Eurasia, but a population was introduced to parts of South America as well. Likely the weirdest thing you'll ever learn about beavers is that there's a gland in them that was once harvested to create artificial raspberry flavoring.
Badger
Muskrat
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Vicuna
Harbor Porpoise
Narwhal
Narwhals are one of the most easily recognized whales in the sea, thanks to that massive tusks sported by the males. It's not actually a horn but an extremely long tooth that starts in the whale's mouth, pierces its flesh and grows out.
Manatee
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Black bear
Binturong
The binturong, also called a bearcat, comes from Asia and has a massive prehensile tail. They have glands that they use for scent marking which produce an odor described as smelling either like popcorn or corn chips.
Sloth bear
Dugong
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Gazelle
Camel
Mountain goat
Guanaco
Guanacos are native to South America and are one of four very similar species that live in the region. Most people will recognize a llama right away, and to a lesser extent the alpaca, but there's also a species called a vicuna that looks similar as well.
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Orangutan
Orangutans easily stand out from most apes thanks to their bright reddish-brown hair. They tend to spend most of their lives in trees, which is more of a monkey trait than an ape one, and it's easy to pick an older, dominant male out of a crowd since it will have massive, wide cheek flaps.
Mountain gorilla
Mandrill
Bonobo
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Flying squirrel
Vampire bat
Vampire bats, as the name suggests, feed on blood to sustain themselves. Aside from their dining habits, vampire bats are unique in that they're remarkably mobile on land as well as in the air. Unlike other bats, vampire bats are capable of walking, jumping and even running.
Sugar glider
Wombat
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Platypus
The platypus is far and away one of the most bizarre mammals on Earth. It's a monotreme, which means it lays eggs, but it also has little horn-like spurs on its hind legs that can inject venom into predators as a defense mechanism.
Echidna
Ocelot
Tasmanian devil
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Serval
Lynx
Leopard
Liger
Ligers are fairly rare thanks to their unusual parentage. A liger's father is a lion, and the mother is a tiger. If it was the opposite, then the offspring would be a tigon and would be much smaller. Full-grown, a liger can reach about 1,000 pounds.
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Black rhino
Hippopotamus
African elephant
African elephants are enormous, and males can exceed 13,000 pounds. The largest ever recorded was actually over 18,000 pounds. For some perspective, the average Jeep weighs between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds. So yes, elephants are big.
Bactrian camel
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Polar bear
Polar bears are the largest bears in the world weighing up to about 1,500 pounds when full-grown, though females are often much smaller. Polar bears spend so much time living and hunting in and around the ice that they're actually classified as marine mammals.
Grizzly bear
Black bear
Sun bear
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Gemsbok
Dik-dik
Klipspringer
Klipspringers seem to be big fans of monogamy, and pairs will bond for life. Not only that they seem to be a little clingy as well, and bonded pairs are rarely more than several yards from one another in the wild.
Lechwe
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Dugong
Harp seal
River dolphin
Vaquita
Vaquitas are very small dolphin-like creatures native to waters off the coast of Mexico. Unfortunately, as a result of heavy gillfishing which catches vaquitas as bycatch, their population has been decimated. By 2019, the wild population was estimated to be under 10.
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Fossa
A fossa looks like a cat that someone crossed with a weasel and grows to be about two and a half feet long. Because it's so adept at climbing trees, a large part of its diet actually consists of Madagascar's native lemurs.
Meerkat
Fennec fox
Wolverine
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Badger
Ground squirrel
Raccoon
Raccoons are a pretty common sight throughout North America, including in cities. Unlike many wild animals that are pushed out by urban areas, raccoons have well adapted to live with humans and routinely can be found in urban areas tearing apart garbage bags.
Eastern skunk
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Ribbon seal
The distinctive black-and-white pattern of a ribbon seal makes them stand out in a crowd (not that you're likely to ever see them in a crowd). They're usually found in the Arctic in Canada or Russia and only rare travel south.
Walrus
Grey's sea lion
Manatee
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Skunk
Skunks are a common sight throughout North America, living in both forests and cities, and while some consider them pests, others are willing to keep them as pets after their scent gland has been removed.
Polecat
Lemming
Hedgehog
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Chimpanzee
Baboon
Sifaka
Sifakas are a species of lemur native to Madagascar, and their color that can range from black to bright white depending on the species. The name sifaka comes from the call the animal makes, which is said to sound something like "shifak."
Orangutan
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Siberian tiger
Snow leopard
Snow leopards come from Central and South Asia. The name ounce came from the word "lonce," which was an old variation on the name lynx. That's all kind of ironic considering how long a snow leopard's tail is and a lynx's tail is generally so short.
Ocelot
Cheetah
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Aardvark
Anteater
Tapir
Three-toed sloth
The three-toed sloth is native to South America, and it lives up to its name as slowly as it possibly can. They max out at speeds of about 0.15 miles per hour, which means they're pretty much never in a hurry to get anywhere.
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Meerkat
Warthog
Gibbon
Babirusa
Babirusas are a kind of wild pig that is most notable for the huge tusks it sports, which can be both upper and lower canines, giving them four tusks in total. The upper canines pierce through the snout and come out through the flesh.
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Koala
Koalas are emblems of Australia and one of the most recognizable little animals in the world. If you visit Australia, you might hear stories of drop bears, carnivorous versions of koalas that drop from trees on unsuspecting passers-by. They're not real, but they do get people spooked.
Kinkajou
Ring-tailed lemur
Aye-aye
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Wolf
Wolves are arguably the most well-known wild animals in the entire world and are essentially the source of modern domestic dogs. Despite their fearsome reputation as predators, it's actually quite rare for a healthy wolf to attack a human except in some extreme circumstances.
Grey fox
African wild dog
Hyena
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Gelada
Geladas are a species of baboon found in Ethiopia. They're most easily recognizable by their bright red chest and also by their mouths, which have massive canine fangs that become more pronounced thanks to the gelada's ability to peel its upper lip back fully and expose its gums and teeth.
Macaque
Bonobo
Lowland gorilla
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Ferret
Ferrets are actually domesticated polecats, a member of the weasel family. New Zealand actually has an issue with feral populations of ferret/polecat hybrids that have become somewhat invasive pests.
Weasel
Skunk
Marmot
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Zorse
Giraffe
Okapi
Okapis look like a cross between zebras and giraffes, and it's true they are the most closely related to giraffes, but there's not much zebra there. They were only formally identified as a species back in 1901, but they've been known by locals for generations.
Zebra
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Lynx
Mountain lion
Mountain lions or cougars are the largest cats you'll find in North America and live from the Yukon all the way down to South America. Despite its size, it's not always the top of the food chain in its range and will often back off of prey if there are bears, wolves or other cats around.
Caracal
Fisher
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Badger
Hamster
Groundhog
Groundhogs are about as famous and well-loved as any rodent can hope to get thanks to the tradition of Groundhog Day. In both Canada and the United States, a famous groundhog is brought out every February second to predict how much longer winter will last. The Canadian one is even an albino!
Lemming
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Humpback whale
Sei whale
Right whale
Blue whale
Even bigger than the biggest dinosaur that ever lived, blue whales are the most massive creatures in existence. They grow to be nearly 100 feet long and weigh up to 190 tons. That's almost 10 city buses.
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Porcupine
Porcupines are large rodents known for their defensive quills. Their name translates literally to "pig quill," or, conversely, quill pig, which seems entirely appropriate. Though it's mostly unheard of in North America, in parts of Asia, the quills of porcupines are eaten as food by humans.
Wolverine
Marten
Mink
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Proboscis monkey
The proboscis money ks a pretty easy monkey to identify thanks to its dramatically large nose. In males, it can grow to over four inches long and actually hangs down over the monkey's mouth.
Mandrill
Howler monkey
Capuchin
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Leopard
Cheetah
Tiger
Lion
Lion's are some of Africa's most impressive predators. Historically, these animals had a much greater range and could be found throughout parts of Asia and even in Europe in Spain, Italy and elsewhere.
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Buffalo
Cow
Cattle are one of the oldest domesticated animals in the world and have been raised as livestock for over 10,000 years. They've been domesticated for so long, you'd be hard-pressed to find any wild or feral cattle in the world, though there are still are a few small populations.
Bison
Donkey
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Giraffe
Giraffes are native to Africa and are pretty easy to identify thanks to their long necks and legs, which make them the tallest animals in the world. The tallest on record was a giraffe named George who managed to reach 19 feet plus his horns.
Zebra
Pronghorn
Gemsbok
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White rhino
Black rhino
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus may look big and clumsy, but it's a much faster and more aggressive animal than it seems. Fiercely territorial and unpredictable in nature, hippos are responsible for upward of 500 deaths per year.
Musk-ox
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Elk
Caribou
Moose
Moose are found in the United States and Canada as well as Sweden, Russian, Finland Norway and even Poland, among other European nations. An effort was once made to introduce them to New Zealand that was considered a failure, but there's evidence some may have survived.
Waterbuck
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Mountain gorilla
Mountain gorillas, a subspecies of Eastern gorillas, are not particularly aggressive despite their size and power. Even young gorillas have shown an inherent fear of some curious things, including caterpillars and chameleons. They also tend to avoid water whenever possible.
Orangutan
Gelada
Lemur
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Tapir
Guinea pig
Capybara
Capybaras are closely related to guinea pigs but are obviously much larger, sometimes weighing over 140 pounds. They're also remarkably social animals, and a herd of capybara can grow to have over 100 members.
Babirusa
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Capuchin
Cotton-top tamarin
Cotton-top tamarins are small South American monkeys were once caught en masse for use in medical research and experimentation. Before laws were put in place to protect them, it's estimated up to 40,000 were taken from the wild. Due to that and habitat loss, only about 6,000 are left in the wild.
Howler monkey
Marmot
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