How well do you know your animal facts? Test your knowledge with our quiz, and then tell us how you did for a chance to win a PETA lunch bag.

1. Which animals are reportedly the closest living relatives of the Tyrannosaurus rex?
2. Which animals' brains are able to fully repair themselves after they have experienced trauma?
3. Which animals are such great parents that in ancient Rome, it was considered a compliment to be told that you must have been raised by that animal?
4. Which small animals are so brave that they will fight powerful predators such as eagles and foxes to protect their young?
5. Which animals were able to find their way through a maze with a speed comparable to that of dogs?
6. Which animals have more bones in their necks than giraffes do?
7. Which animals can talk to their mothers from inside their eggshells before they have hatched?
8. Which animals' legs can detect vibrations on the ground and in the atmosphere, allowing them to sense when predators are approaching?
9. Like Paul Reveres of the animal kingdom, which animals use different warning calls when predators are approaching by land rather than approaching by air?
10. Which animals can remember the faces and social ranks of more than 100 other animals in their group, even after being separated from them for months before being reunited?

Answers

Did you guess "chickens" for any of the questions? Did you figure out that "chickens" was the answer to all the questions? Chickens are inquisitive, sensitive, highly social animals whose intellect has been compared to dogs, cats, primates, and human children. For National Chicken Month, please share this contest and encourage everyone you know to stop eating chickens. 

To enter to win PETA's "I Am Not a Nugget" lunch bag, leave a comment telling us how you did on the game, and a winner will be chosen at random. (Your score on the game will not affect your chances of winning.)

Good luck!

By commenting here, you’re acknowledging that you’ve read and you agree to our contest terms and conditions and our privacy policy, and you’re also agreeing to our collection, storage, use, and disclosure of your personal info in accordance with those policies as well as to receiving e-mails from us.

For the uninitiated, Super Meat Boy is a video game in which an anthropomorphic meatball bounces around on a mission to save his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the evil Dr. Fetus. PETA's new parody game, Super Tofu Boy, skewers Super Meat Boy for its limp pro-meat message.

Super Tofu Boy begins when Bandage Girl dumps Meat Boy for the irresistible Tofu Boy. (With Meat Boy's bad breath, buzzing flies, and high cholesterol, who can blame her?) After all, everyone knows that vegetarians make better lovers. Meat Boy—a vengeful, bloody cube of rotting animal flesh—doesn't take well to being dumped, so he kidnaps Bandage Girl.

You must help Tofu Boy through the Slaughterhouse, the perils of McCruelty, and the Bacon Factory to save Bandage Girl.

Beat the game to save your girlfriend!

Bounce off walls and avoid obstacles to reach your girlfriend at the end of each level.

Watch out for flying meatballs, flames, and spinning blades along the way.

Play the game now. Just one warning: The game may not be easy, but it's addictive and fun. Enjoy!

Written by Joel Bartlett

Revenge for seals is just a click away. In Adult Swim's addictive new game, Polar Bear Payback, you control a bloodthirsty polar bear as he battles through hordes of seal slaughterers (level 1 of the game) and whalers (level 2), all while saving animals and the environment.

And bloodthirsty is right. To keep your health meter high, you must bite the heads off the animal abusers and suck the blood from their skulls. After you spit out the skull, one of your baby-seal companions will use his head to toss it like a rubber ball. No, this game is not for the faint of heart.

The release of Polar Bear Payback, created by Smashing Ideas, couldn't have come at a better time for taking action to save Canada's seals. Today is the International Day of Action for Seals, so one of the many things you can do for seals today is to kill a bunch of (virtual) sealers.

Written by Joel Bartlett

Earlier this week, when PETA released our parody of Majesco's Cooking Mama video game series, we wondered how the game would go over with the folks at Majesco. We were extremely happy yesterday when we received Majesco's public response, which included the following:

Majesco even pulled Mama from the kitchen to get her thoughts on the matter. "I would never put rat in my Ratatouille," said Mama. "Like any accomplished cook, I create my recipes to appeal to a broad range of tastes and preferences. My only goal is to ensure you leave the table well fed."

Now that I know I have Mama's attention:

Written by Joel Bartlett

Just in time for Thanksgiving and the release of the latest installment in Majesco's popular video game series Cooking Mama, PETA has launched a parody of the game called Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals, the Unauthorized PETA Edition.

If you're wondering why we're picking on poor Mama, it's probably because you've never played the original games. They are so heavy on dishes made from dead animals that the only things missing are the blood and the slaughterhouse. So in the name of accuracy and honesty, PETA decided to introduce a little horror into Mama's kitchen!

In the original Nintendo Wii and DS versions, players score points for assembling a meal (yup, it's that simple). That also applies in PETA's parody, but with this Thanksgiving dinner, players also must go through the motions of plucking the turkey's feathers, pulling out the bird's intestines, and cutting off the animal's head (we like to paint the full picture of what goes into a "meal"). We also added this really disgusting mini-game—no, seriously, this should really gross you out—where you have to stick food up a turkey's butt. It's amazing the things we can come up with!

And all the while, a demonic, cleaver-wielding Mama takes delight in the agony. But the good news is that if you beat the game you might be able to give Mama a change of heart and replace her bloodlust with a craving for tofu-turkey. Give it a shot if you think you have what it takes!

In addition to entertaining and educating (some people like to say "edutaining," but I just think that's lame) with the new Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals game, we're also encouraging players to contact Majesco to ask for a Cooking Mama game with all vegetarian recipes. We've already got the good news that Mama's next outing after Cooking Mama: World Kitchen will be a gardening game titled Gardening Mama (how did they come up with that title?!), but we want Mama to take her newly found love of veggies back to the kitchen too. While Mama kills animals, PETA saves animals.

Oh, and I think I forgot to mention that this game is the best thing ever. So play it now, or else ….

Written by Joel Bartlett

cm1 / CC

Michael Jackson is trickier to find these days than Waldo, but lucky for us (and for animals), we've got some mad detective skills. Do you really think any disguise would prevent us from tracking him down when animals are in danger? Heck no!

PETA's Captive Animal Rescue and Enforcement Department—otherwise known as CARE—shot off a letter to the artist insisting that he take responsibility for the giraffes he once owned at his Neverland Ranch property. You might remember that Jackson sold the animals who were living at his private zoo after the millions of dollars of unpaid debt that had piled up at his doorstep made him incapable of caring for them.

Four giraffes from the ranch were relocated to Arizona after being purchased by a couple who apparently intend to open a zoo. But since the beginning of the year, PETA has received numerous complaints from concerned citizens regarding the well-being of these giraffes. A former volunteer caretaker for the animals has reported that the giraffes do not receive adequate foot care. According to this person, the giraffes have been housed in small, 15 ft. by 15 ft. "temporary" enclosures since the day they were purchased over a year ago. And, with the exception of one giraffe—who reportedly was allowed to bleed for days after giving birth before the couple finally requested assistance—none of the animals have been seen by a vet.

We have reason to believe that one of these giraffes was born at the San Antonio Zoo. Unfortunately, our numerous attempts to contact the zoo to request that zoo officials arrange for the giraffes' lifetime care at a suitable facility have gone unanswered.

Now, it's time for Jackson to put his money where his mouth is and pay to have these animals, whom he once supposedly loved so dearly, transferred to an accredited sanctuary. These giraffes have been suffering for far too long. They deserve to live out the remainder of their lives in a clean, safe environment, where they will receive adequate food, shelter, and veterinary care.

Come on, Michael. It's bad, it's bad, and you know it.

Written by Jennifer Cierlitsky

Lindsay Lohan's tan turned noticeably paler tonight after an anti-fur activist showered her with flour at a nightclub in Paris. Lindsay was on her way into the VIP room on the Champs-Elysées just after 1 a.m. early Saturday when she had an entire bag of flour dumped over her head by a French fur foe who shouted, "Lindsay Lohan—fur hag!" Lohan has enraged animal lovers by appearing in at least two different fur coats in recent days, despite PETA's repeated pleas that she consider how animals suffer for every fur garment and stop wearing their skins. You can check out the pics from X17 here.

When Lindsay was named to PETA's annual Worst-Dressed List earlier this year, her entry read: "I Know Who Killed Me isn't just the title of Lindsay Lohan's latest bomb, it's the cry of the animals snuffed out so that this 'mean girl' can pose in their pelts. Lindsay, there's no road to recovery for the foxes who are anally electrocuted so that you can look skanky." She was also in the public eye last winter for allegedly stealing a $10,000 fur coat from a fellow partygoer.

PETA Europe's Robbie LeBlanc had this to say about Lindsay's run in with the French flour-tossing fur foe: "There is nothing remotely 'fashionable' about the torture and death of animals killed for fur. Lindsay Lohan might be able to ignore images of bloody animals skinned alive for their pelts, but we hope a dash of flour will help her rise to the occasion and forsake fur once and for all."

So come on Lindsay, drop the fur for good.

Written by Joel Bartlett

When we were first alerted to the atrocities that were being committed in the name of education at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine in St. Kitts, we sprung into immediate action through our action alert, on the streets, and in important meetings. The students there were being forced to mutilate and kill hundreds of dogs and other healthy animals each year in unnecessary, painful procedures. Thanks to public pressure, Ross University announced shortly after that it would no longer conduct harmful, invasive, or terminal experiments on dogs—although, sadly, they would continue to do so on donkeys, sheep, and goats.

Well, I'm excited to announce that today marks another step in the right direction for Ross University. While PETA protestors demonstrated outside DeVry's shareholder meeting—DeVry being Ross University's parent company—PETA Laboratory Methods Specialist Shalin Gala met with the bigwigs inside. The CEO informed him that Ross University will no longer perform terminal surgeries, full stop. Personally, I'd like to think that the giant, friendly "sheep" who were hanging around outside the meeting had something to do with that announcement! That or the thousands and thousands of messages from compassionate people that Ross University has received.

Rather than settling on this step forward, we will commit to re-doubling our efforts against Ross University and DeVry's harmful experiement. It's great that healthy animals at Ross will no longer be killed, but invasive procedures—such as severing the nerves in donkeys' toes, cutting their ligaments, inserting plastic tubes through their noses and into their stomachs, surgically puncturing their abdomens, cutting their tracheas (or windpipes), and removing fluid from their joints—will presumably continue. Every little improvement helps, of course. But c'mon, Ross, catch up with the times and cut out the cruelty.

Here's hoping that Ross University will continue to improve and eventually stop animal tests altogether. Feel free to drop them a line and tell them what you think!

Written by Amanda Schinke

You remember Agriprocessors, right? You know, the kosher slaughterhouse whose practices turned out to be anything but kosher? The one that lost 76 percent of its employees in an immigration raid and that filed for bankruptcy last week?

Well, since Agriprocessors is (or, dare I say, was) the largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse in the world, the bankruptcy has led to a shortage of kosher meat. An article on www.israelnationalnews.com reports that, as a result, many Jewish Americans are eating more vegetarian meals.

Three of the five largest kosher beef slaughterhouses in the U.S. and the second-largest kosher beef supplier in South America are currently not operating. This is adding to the shortage and causing prices to escalate. In addition to troubles at Agriprocessors, operations at the nation's third-largest kosher slaughterhouse, North Star Beef in Minnesota, stopped several months ago after a fire, and the fifth largest facility in the U.S. (Local Pride, which we investigated in 2007 and is owned by the same people as Agriprocessors) stopped operations in October.

There's a solid case for Jewish vegetarianism in the first place, and the lawbreaking practices of Agriprocessors and its subsequent shutdown are even more reasons to have a vegetarian Shabbat. Many "meaty" recipes—even chopped "liver"!—can be made pareve (that's no meat, no dairy).

VegCooking.com, by the way, has a nice collection of Jewish recipes. I have personally made both the latkes and the stuffed zucchini and can attest to their yumminess. For more veganized traditional favorites, www.jewishveg.com is another great resource.

Mmm, vegan knishes … I might have to buy potatoes on the way home today.

Written by Amanda Schinke

Have you seen the Tom Jones inspired cat memory game that’s making its way around the interweb this week? I hate to even blog about it, but what can I say, I’m obsessed. If you have a spare minute or two, see if you can beat me; I got to level 12. But I warn you, the game is beyond addictive and you'll never get the time back . . .

Voodoo Zebra/Creative Commons
What’s new, pussycat? Whoaoaoaa . . .

Click here, if you dare.