How many teeth does a shark have, and why do pigs have curly tails? Try our kids’ quiz

1. Francis, 4, asks: how many teeth does a shark have?

   1. Sharks have one huge tooth in the middle, then 10 either side

   2. Sharks have 1,000 teeth

   3. Sharks have between 50 and 300 teeth that constantly fall out and get replaced by new ones

   4. All adult species of shark, apart from the nurse shark, have 86 teeth

2. Eva, 10, and Cecily, 7, ask: how many Lego people in the world are there?

   1. Thousands

   2. Millions

   3. Billions

   4. Trillions

3. Astrid, 5½, asks: why do snails come out in the rain?

   1. Snails usually mate in wet weather

   2. They love to wash and shower in the rain

   3. They come out to keep their skin moist and avoid drying out

   4. They come out to drink water by licking it off leaves

4. Theo, 6¾, asks: how do bogeys form in your nose?

   1. Little goblins come at night and put them there

   2. They are dried-up bits of mucus, dirt and bacteria

   3. The body produces them naturally – for early mankind they were a high source of protein

   4. The body creates them as a protective barrier

5. Jude, 8, asks: why do pigs have curly tails?

   1. Because they look cute

   2. So that they can curl their tails around one another to do a kind of piggy kiss

   3. We don’t know for sure

   4. They can uncurl it, then curl it again to hold things

Solutions

1:C - Different species of shark have different kinds of teeth, as well as varying numbers. Sharks on average have 50-300 teeth at a time, but they don’t grow teeth and keep them: they have lots of rows of them and when an old tooth drops out, a new one replaces it – like a conveyor belt of teeth., 2:C - According to National Geographic Kids, on average there are 80 Lego bricks for every person on Earth. So if there are 7.7 billion people, there are roughly 616bn bricks. Lego Minifigures are the biggest population of Lego people; there are over 4bn of them in the world., 3:C - Snails usually come out at night but will pop out in the day if it has been raining. They do this to avoid drying out, as they use up lots of water when they make slime. When it’s hot, snails stay in their shells to keep moist., 4:B - When mucus, dirt and bacteria get dry and clump together inside your nose, you’re left with a bogey., 5:C - We’re not sure. One idea is that pigs in China were bred with curly tails; another is that it helps pigs keep safe as they fight by biting each other’s tails, and a curly tail is harder to bite.

Scores

1. 5 and above.

2. 4 and above.

3. 3 and above.

4. 2 and above.

5. 0 and above.

6. 1 and above.

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a weekly podcast answering children’s questions, out now as a book.

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