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Fastest Animals Quiz

How well do you know the fastest animals? Floored turns the ranking into a building: floor 1 is the top of the list. We name a floor, you guess what's on it, and the lift rides to whatever you picked so you know to go higher or lower.

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Free, no sign-up · 5 lists, a few minutes

How it works

You get a few guesses per floor. Land it on your first guess for 10 points; a near miss still scores. After the animal speed round, four more lists from the same topic keep the ride going.

Show the full ranking (39)
  1. Peregrine falcon 200+ mph (322+ km/h)
    It lives nearly everywhere on Earth except polar regions, very high mountains and most rainforests.
  2. Cheetah 70 mph (113 km/h)
    It chirps like a bird when excited, for instance when gathered around a kill.
  3. Pronghorn 61 mph (98 km/h)
    Despite its 'American antelope' nickname, its closest living relatives are giraffes and okapis.
  4. Lion 50 mph (80 km/h)
    Lions roar most often at night, a sound that can be heard from 8 km (5 miles) away.
  5. Thomson's gazelle 50 mph (80 km/h)
    When a predator is near, it often 'stots', bouncing high into the air on stiff legs.
  6. Wildebeest 50 mph (80 km/h)
    Its name is Afrikaans for 'wild beast', given by Dutch settlers around 1700.
  7. Quarter horse 47.5 mph (76 km/h)
    It is named for the quarter-mile races at which it excelled.
  8. African wild dog 45 mph (72 km/h)
    Conservation groups promote the name 'painted wolf', since 'wild dog' can sound negative.
  9. Elk 45 mph (72 km/h)
    Its other name, wapiti, comes from a Shawnee and Cree word meaning 'white rump'.
  10. Coyote 43 mph (69 km/h)
    Its name is a Spanish borrowing of the Nahuatl word coyotl.
  11. Gray fox 42 mph (68 km/h)
    It can climb branchless tree trunks as high as 18 m and jump from branch to branch.
  12. Hyena 40 mph (64 km/h)
    Though dog-like, hyenas are more closely related to cats and civets than to dogs.
  13. Ostrich 40 mph (64 km/h)
    It lays the largest eggs of any living bird, each weighing about 1.4 kg on average.
  14. Zebra 40 mph (64 km/h)
    Every zebra has its own unique pattern of stripes.
  15. Mongolian wild ass 40 mph (64 km/h)
    Also called the Mongolian khulan, it is a subspecies of the onager, or Asiatic wild ass.
  16. Greyhound 39.35 mph (63 km/h)
    It is an ancient sighthound breed, developed to hunt game by sight and speed.
  17. Whippet 35.5 mph (57 km/h)
    In the 19th century it was sometimes called 'the poor man's racehorse'.
  18. Jackal 35 mph (56 km/h)
    The Egyptian god Anubis was often shown with a man's body and a jackal's head.
  19. Mule deer 35 mph (56 km/h)
    It is named for its large ears, which look like a mule's.
  20. Rabbit 35 mph (56 km/h)
    All of a rabbit's teeth keep growing; in most rodents only the incisors do.
  21. Giraffe 32 mph (51 km/h)
    Each of its neck vertebrae is over 28 cm long, but it has no more of them than most mammals.
  22. Reindeer 32 mph (51 km/h)
    It is the only deer species in which females can grow antlers too.
  23. Cat 30 mph (48 km/h)
    It can hear sounds too faint or too high-pitched for human ears.
  24. Kangaroo 30 mph (48 km/h)
    Male kangaroos are called bucks, boomers, jacks or old men.
  25. Grizzly bear 30 mph (48 km/h)
    It is a North American subspecies of the brown bear.
  26. Warthog 30 mph (48 km/h)
    It backs into burrows rear-first, so its head faces out, ready to burst out if needed.
  27. White-tailed deer 30 mph (48 km/h)
    When it senses danger it raises its white tail like a flag, a habit called tail-flagging.
  28. Human 27.89 mph (45 km/h)
    Usain Bolt has held the 100 m world record, 9.58 seconds, since 2009.
  29. Elephant 25 mph (40 km/h)
    An elephant's trunk has up to 150,000 muscle bundles and no bone.
  30. Black mamba 20 mph (32 km/h)
    Despite its name it isn't black; the name refers to the inky inside of its mouth.
  31. Six-lined racerunner 18 mph (29 km/h)
    This small lizard has six yellow or greenish stripes running from head to tail.
  32. Squirrel 12 mph (19 km/h)
    Its name comes from Greek words meaning 'shade' and 'tail', after its bushy tail.
  33. Pig 11 mph (18 km/h)
    Pigs don't cool off by sweating; in hot weather they wallow in mud or water instead.
  34. Chicken 9 mph (14 km/h)
    There were over 26.5 billion chickens on Earth in 2023.
  35. House mouse 8 mph (13 km/h)
    To shed heat, it can warm the skin of its tail by up to 10 C by sending more blood there.
  36. Spider 1.17 mph (1.9 km/h)
    The spider timed, Tegenaria atrica, is a giant house spider native to Europe.
  37. Giant tortoise 0.17 mph (0.27 km/h)
    Jonathan, a giant tortoise living on St Helena, is thought to have hatched around 1832.
  38. Three-toed sloth 0.15 mph (0.24 km/h)
    It climbs down from the canopy only about once a week, to defecate on the forest floor.
  39. Garden snail 0.03 mph (0.05 km/h)
    Each one is a hermaphrodite, producing both male and female sex cells.

Source: Infoplease: Speed of Animals (Natural History Magazine, 1974) · as of 1974-03

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