Do You Know Whether These Animals Are Omnivores, Carnivores, Herbivores, or Detritivores?

By: J. Reinoehl
Estimated Completion Time
2 min
Do You Know Whether These Animals Are Omnivores, Carnivores, Herbivores, or Detritivores?
Image: shutterstock

About This Quiz

Hey, animal enthusiast! Let’s see if you really know what your favorite animals are eating! Do you know what a grasshopper is classified as? How about a tiger? What kind of animal is a hedgehog? Do you think you can answer these questions? Then this is the quiz for you. And if you want to learn the answers to these questions, guess what—this is the quiz for you, too!

Just in case you need a little refresher: Carnivores eat living meat. Herbivores eat living plants and vegetation. Omnivores eat living plants and animals, and detritivores eat dead and decaying organisms. With this quiz, consider what animals naturally eat. So while a farmer may feed meat to his sheep, and the sheep may eat it because it is mixed into its food, that does not mean the sheep is an omnivore. Since sheep naturally only eat vegetation, it would be considered an herbivore.

We know you love animals, or you wouldn’t have clicked on this quiz, but this “Do You Know Whether These Animals Are Omnivores, Carnivores, Herbivores, or Detritivores?” quiz will find out just how much you know about their eating habits. Show us you know the difference between carnivores and herbivores, and then challenge your friends to beat your score!

What type of animal is a bear?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
“Why what on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die of course.” –Bill Bryson from A Walk in the Woods
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a millipede?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore
Millipedes begin their lives with only three pairs of legs and can grow up to 200 as an adult. Adult millipedes have two pairs of legs per body segment.

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What type of animal is a horse?
Carnivore
Herbivore
“Horses calm me. I love being around them. They smell great; they are beautiful to look at; they are loving, demanding, temperamental, and they settle you.” –Shania Twain
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a grasshopper?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Grasshoppers belong to the order Orthoptera. The insects in this order make noise (“chirping”) by rubbing their back legs against their wings. They have ears in their front legs beneath the knee.
Omnivore
Detritivore

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Which of the following animals is an omnivore?
Panda
Alligator
Springtails
Skunk
“In the land of skunks, he who has half a nose is king.” –Chris Farley

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What type of animal is a ladybug?
Carnivore
Ladybugs lay extra clusters of eggs that do not contain embryos. These allow newly hatched babies to have food as soon as they come out of their egg.
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a goose?
Carnivore
Herbivore
“If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then, it will be managed like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese.” –Ted Nugent
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a lion?
Carnivore
Lions live in prides that contain about 15 individual lions. You can hear a lion roar from about 5 miles away.
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is an iguana?
Carnivore
Herbivore
“I always had an affinity for lizards. I’ve always felt somewhat close to them. They’re reptiles. I find myself feeling somewhat reptilian at times.” ― Johnny Depp
Omnivore
Detritivore

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Which of the following animals is a carnivore?
Woodlouse
Chimpanzee
Shark
The front row of teeth in a shark’s mouth usually contains about 50 teeth. Within its lifetime, it may go through up to 30,000 teeth.
Ostrich

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What type of animal is an elephant?
Carnivore
Herbivore
“They say somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end.” –Robert McCammon in Boy’s Life
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a raccoon?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
Raccoons are notorious for eating anything. They prefer clams, crayfish, frogs, snails, bird eggs, birds, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. They also eat pet food and human garbage.
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a green cellar slug?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore
“Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and untroubled joy. So do not trouble it, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their joy, do not go against God's intent.” –Fyodor Dostoyevsky from The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

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What type of animal is a fox?
Carnivore
Foxes are solitary animals. The only time they live with other foxes is when they are raising young.
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

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Which of the following animals is an herbivore?
Honey-bee
“Just as bees make honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so do the wise profit from the most difficult of experiences.” –Plato
Hyena
Badger
Dolphin

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What type of animal is a cow?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Although usually docile, cows kill 22 humans each year. Milk cows that are named and cared for will produce more milk and are less likely to injure farmers.
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a rat?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
“Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return..” –Ecclesiastes 3: 19—20 (NIV)
Detritivore

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What type of animal is an Asian palm civet?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
Kopi Luwak is the world’s most expensive coffee and is created by force-feeding captured civets (and sometimes their endangered relatives) coffee beans and then the beans are recovered from the civet feces. Sadly, many of these captive animals are poorly cared for and there is a high mortality rate among them.
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a tiger?
Carnivore
“Tigers, except when wounded or when man-eaters, are on the whole very good-tempered...Occasionally, a tiger will object to too close an approach to its cubs or to a kill that it is guarding. The objection invariably takes the form of growling, and if this does not prove effective it is followed by short rushes accompanied by terrifying roars. If these warnings are disregarded, the blame for any injury inflicted rests entirely with the intruder.” –Jim Corbett
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

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Which of the following animals is a detritivore?
Orca whale
Opossum
Pika
Burying beetles
Burying beetles find small dead animals, transport them to their burrow, remove all its hair, embalm it, and then lay their babies near it. The mother eats the decomposing animal and regurgitates it to feed her babies.

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What type of animal is a domestic cat?
Carnivore
“It is very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them they always purr.” –Lewis Carroll
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a bat sea star?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore
Unlike other sea stars that only eat living things, bat sea stars primarily surround dead plants and animals in the sea and digest them by extending its stomach over them.

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What type of animal is a hedgehog?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
“The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one, but that is the best of all.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a goat?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Goats are thought to be the first animals ever domesticated by humans. Goat meat is consumed in greater quantities (per capita) than any other meat.
Omnivore
Detritivore

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Which of the following is a carnivore?
Tiger moth
Jaguar
“There are two things for which animals are to be envied: They know nothing of future evils or of what people say about them.” –Voltaire
Sloth
Chicke

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What type of animal is a deer?
Carnivore
Herbivore
White-tailed deer average between 6-8 feet tall and weigh 110-300 lbs. Deer kill around 130 people each year, although this mainly occurs when deer hit cars and cause accidents.
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a pig?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
“The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel..” –Proverbs 12: 10 (NIV)
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a rabbit?
Carnivore
Herbivore
After eating all those vegetables, rabbits have a hard time breaking them down. Because of this rabbits eat their first poop. The first poop is softer and the second poop is hard. This digestive process works similar to the way a cow chews its cud.
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a hawk?
Carnivore
“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.” –Robert Wilson Lynd
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

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Which of the following is an omnivore?
Giraffe
Dustmites
Raven
Ravens eat a wide variety of foods: fruit, carrion, meat, fish, seeds, and garbage. They participate in “anting” where they roll in an ant hill and then kill the ants and rub their dead bodies into their feathers.
Cheetah

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What type of animal is a white rhinoceros?
Carnivore
Herbivore
“Rhinos are just fat unicorns. If we’d give them the time and attention they deserve as well as a diet, they’d reveal their majestic ways.” –Ashley Purdy
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What is one name for a zebra?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Zebras are found in Africa and can run up to 65 mph. Each zebra has a different pattern of stripes.
Omnivore
Detritivore

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What type of animal is a spider?
Carnivore
“I take my hat off to you—or I would if I were not afraid of showering you in spiders.” –J. K. Rowling from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Herbivore
Omnivore
Detritivore

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Which of the following is an herbivore?
Hippopotamus
The hippo will spend up to 16 hours of its day in the water. They can hold their breath for five minutes. They secrete a red, oily substance when they sunbathe on the shore that acts like sunblock and moisturizes their skin.
Robin
Sea otter
Heron

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What type of animal is a warthog?
Carnivore
Herbivore
Omnivore
“Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.” –Albert Schweitzer
Detritivore

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