Animals & Nature · Unit 6

What Animals Eat

Diets, teeth, hunting, and how energy flows through a food chain

Diet explains an enormous amount about an animal's body: teeth, gut length, eye position and speed are all consequences of what it eats and of what eats it.

The unit covers herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, the tools they use, predator and prey relationships, food chains and webs, and the decomposers that make the whole thing cyclical.

This unit breaks down into 18 short steps and 109 questions, starting at difficulty 1 and building to 3. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.

Steps: 18
Questions: 109
Difficulty: 1-3

What this unit covers

Plant, Meat and Mixed Diets
Food Chains and Webs
Hunters and Hunted
Teeth, Beaks and Tools
Nature's Recyclers

Where this fits

Follows Animal Groups. Ecosystems and Biodiversity develops the food web material.

Where people slip

Eye position is a reliable clue. Predators mostly have forward-facing eyes for judging distance; prey mostly have side-facing eyes for spotting movement in a wide arc.

How the unit is structured

What Animals Eat runs as 18 short steps that unlock in order. 13 are practice rounds and 5 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 1 and climb to 3 as you progress.

Step 1 · easierStep 18 · harder

Challenge rounds

Example questions

30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 109 in the unit altogether.

Food Chains and Webs

Put in orderLevel 1
1. Put this food chain in the right order.
Answer: Grass -> Rabbit -> Fox
Grass is eaten by a rabbit, the rabbit by a fox.
Fill the blankLevel 2
2. An animal at the top of a food chain with no predators is called an ____ predator.
- apexcorrect
- apple
- average
- ancient
Apex predators sit at the very top.
Choose all that applyLevel 3
3. Which limit the length of food chains? Pick all that apply.
- Energy lost at each transfercorrect
- The size of the habitatcorrect
- How stable the environment iscorrect
- The number of species names
Energy loss, habitat size and ecosystem stability all constrain chain length.
Multiple choiceLevel 3
4. What is a trophic level?
- A feeding position in a food chaincorrect
- A type of habitat
- An animal's age
- A measure of speed
It is a feeding position in a food chain, such as producer or primary consumer.
True or falseLevel 3
5. Food chains are usually short because energy runs out quickly.
Answer: True
True. After four or five levels there is too little energy to support another.
Type the answerLevel 3
6. What is the total mass of living material at a trophic level called?
Answer: biomass
Biomass falls sharply at each higher level.

Hunters and Hunted

True or falseLevel 1
7. The cheetah is the fastest land animal over a short distance.
Answer: True
True. It can sprint at around one hundred kilometres per hour.
Choose all that applyLevel 1
8. Which help animals catch food? Pick all that apply.
- Speedcorrect
- Sharp eyesight or hearingcorrect
- Camouflagecorrect
- Bright warning colours
Speed, sharp senses and camouflage all help a hunter.
Choose all that applyLevel 2
9. Which are hunting strategies? Pick all that apply.
- Ambushcorrect
- Pursuitcorrect
- Trapping with a webcorrect
- Photosynthesis
Ambush, pursuit, trapping and cooperative hunting are all used.
Fact or fibLevel 2
10. Owls have specially shaped feathers that let them fly almost silently.
Answer: True
True. Silent flight helps them surprise prey in the dark.
Multiple choiceLevel 2
11. Why do wolves hunt in packs?
- To bring down larger prey togethercorrect
- To keep warm
- To swim faster
- To share nests
Working together lets them tackle prey much larger than themselves.
Type the answerLevel 2
12. Which big cat is the fastest runner on land?
Answer: cheetah
The cheetah is built entirely for a short explosive chase.

Nature's Recyclers

Build the sentenceLevel 1
13. Build a sentence about food chains.
Answer: Energy comes from the Sun
Energy in a food chain comes from the Sun.
True or falseLevel 1
14. Earthworms help break down dead leaves in the soil.
Answer: True
True. They pull leaves down and their waste enriches the soil.
Choose all that applyLevel 2
15. Which are decomposers or recyclers? Pick all that apply.
- Fungicorrect
- Bacteriacorrect
- Dung beetlescorrect
- Eagles
Fungi, bacteria and dung beetles all break down waste and dead material.
Multiple choiceLevel 2
16. Which bird is a well known scavenger?
- The vulturecorrect
- The hummingbird
- The swan
- The penguin
Vultures find and eat dead animals, cleaning the landscape.
Fact or fibLevel 3
17. Energy flows through an ecosystem once, while matter is used again and again.
Answer: True
True. That difference is fundamental to ecology.
Sort into groupsLevel 3
18. Sort each process by whether it moves energy or recycles matter.
Answer: Sunlight captured by plants = Energy flow; A fox eating a rabbit = Energy flow; Fungi breaking down leaves = Matter recycling; Nitrogen returning to soil = Matter recycling
Energy flows one way, while matter cycles.

Plant, Meat and Mixed Diets

Multiple choiceLevel 1
19. What is a herbivore?
- An animal that eats plantscorrect
- An animal that eats meat
- An animal that eats stones
- An animal that eats nothing
A herbivore eats only plants.
Fill the blankLevel 2
20. An animal that eats mainly fruit is called a ____.
- frugivorecorrect
- carnivore
- detritivore
- producer
Frugivores such as fruit bats also spread seeds.
Sort into groupsLevel 2
21. Sort each animal by what it eats.
Answer: Cow = Plant eater; Rabbit = Plant eater; Wolf = Meat eater; Eagle = Meat eater
Diet is one of the first things biologists note about an animal.
True or falseLevel 2
22. The largest animals in the ocean often eat some of the smallest food.
Answer: True
True. Blue whales and whale sharks both feed on plankton.
Type the answerLevel 2
23. What word means an animal that eats only meat?
Answer: carnivore
Carnivores hunt or scavenge other animals.
Choose all that applyLevel 3
24. Which are specialised feeding strategies? Pick all that apply.
- Nectar feedingcorrect
- Filter feedingcorrect
- Feeding on bloodcorrect
- Feeding on rocks
Nectar feeding, filter feeding and blood feeding are all specialised.

Teeth, Beaks and Tools

Multiple choiceLevel 1
25. Why do eagles have hooked beaks?
- To tear meat into piecescorrect
- To crack nuts
- To sip nectar
- To sieve mud
A sharp hook tears meat into pieces small enough to swallow.
True or falseLevel 1
26. A bird's beak shape tells you a lot about what it eats.
Answer: True
True. Hooked, chisel-like and long thin beaks all suit different foods.
Fact or fibLevel 2
27. A giant anteater has no teeth and uses a long sticky tongue instead.
Answer: True
True. Its tongue can flick in and out very rapidly.
Match the pairsLevel 2
28. Match each bird beak to the food it suits.
Answer: Hooked beak = Tearing meat; Short strong beak = Cracking seeds; Long thin beak = Sipping nectar; Broad flat beak = Sieving water
Beaks are tools shaped by diet.
Type the answerLevel 2
29. Which bird uses its long curved bill to probe deep into mud for worms?
Answer: curlew
Curlews reach prey other birds cannot.
Choose all that applyLevel 3
30. Which methods reveal what wild animals eat? Pick all that apply.
- Direct observationcorrect
- Analysing droppingscorrect
- Stable isotope analysiscorrect
- Asking the animal
Direct observation, dung analysis, isotopes and DNA metabarcoding all work.

Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.

How you practise

This unit mixes 10 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.

Build the sentence
Choose all that apply
Fact or fib
Fill the blank
Match the pairs
Multiple choice
Put in order
Sort into groups
True or false
Type the answer

Practise What Animals Eat

109 questions across 18 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.

Play this unit

Read about What Animals Eat

Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.

What Is an Apex Predator?What sits at the top of a food chain, why removing one can reshape an entire ecosystem, and the famous wolf example.August 28, 2026 · 6 min read

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