Acorn Riddles: 30 Nutty Nature Riddles with Answers

I’m a small, smooth nut that wears a bumpy little hat. I fall from an oak tree in autumn, and squirrels love to hide me. What am I?

I’m a tall, strong tree with wavy-edged leaves. I can live for hundreds of years, and every fall I drop thousands of acorns. What am I?

I sit on top of an acorn like a tiny bowl turned upside down. Kids put me on their fingertips like a little hat. What am I?

I have a big bushy tail, I chatter from the branches, and every fall I dig hundreds of little holes to hide acorns for winter. What am I?

I’m a small striped animal. I stuff acorns into my cheek pouches until my face puffs out, then carry them down into my burrow. What am I?

Acorns ripen and fall to the ground in this season, when leaves turn orange and red. What season is it?

I’m a forest animal with big ears and a white tail. In the fall, I fatten up for winter by eating lots of acorns from the forest floor. What am I?

Pinch an empty acorn cap between your thumbs, press your lips to the gap and blow. What loud sound do you make?

An acorn is hard on the outside and has a tasty middle, just like walnuts and hazelnuts. What kind of food is it?

What did the little acorn say when it grew up?

Oak leaves come in two main styles. Leaves with pointy, bristly tips belong to the red oak group. Which group has leaves with smooth, rounded lobes?

Some years, the oaks across a whole area drop so many acorns that the ground crunches under your feet. Other years, there are hardly any. What is a bumper-crop year called?

I’m a loud, bright blue bird with a crest on my head. I can carry several acorns at once in my throat and mouth, fly away, and bury them far from the tree. What am I?

I drill thousands of small holes into a single tree trunk and push an acorn into each one, saving them for later. What bird am I?

Raw acorns taste very bitter, because they’re full of this natural substance. It’s also found in tea. What is it?

Many Native peoples in California made acorns one of their main foods. After cracking and grinding them, they rinsed the meal over and over to wash out the bitterness. What did they rinse it with?

Squirrels bury far more acorns than they eat. Some of the hidden acorns sprout into new oak trees. How do squirrels end up planting forests?

There’s an old saying: “Great oaks from little acorns grow.” What does it mean?

When an acorn starts to sprout, what pokes out first: a leaf, a flower or a root?

I’m a colorful duck that nests in holes in trees instead of on the ground, and I gobble up acorns that fall near the water. What am I?

How old does an oak tree usually have to be before it makes a good crop of acorns: about 2 years, about 20 years or about 200 years?

White oak acorns ripen in one summer. Red oak acorns take longer. How long?

Squirrels often eat white oak acorns right away but bury red oak acorns for later. Why bury the red ones?

A famous warship from 1797 was built from a very hard kind of oak, called live oak. Cannonballs seemed to bounce off its sides, so sailors gave it a nickname. What was it?

You find a round, brown ball on an oak tree. It looks like a fruit, but it’s not an acorn. It’s a growth the tree made around the egg of a tiny insect. Which insect?

The bark of one kind of oak is so light and springy that people peel it off to make bottle stoppers and bulletin boards. What is this bark called?

A squirrel buries 8 acorns an hour for 5 hours. Later, it finds three out of every four of them. How many acorns are left in the ground, with a chance to grow?

In 2004, the oak was chosen as the national tree of which country?

Some oak trees are older than any building in your town. How long can the oldest oaks live?

What’s a squirrel’s favorite ballet?