How many teeth does a shark have, and why do pigs have curly tails? Try our kids’ quiz
Francis, 4, asks: how many teeth does a shark have?
Sharks have one huge tooth in the middle, then 10 either side
Sharks have 1,000 teeth
Sharks have between 50 and 300 teeth that constantly fall out and get replaced by new ones
All adult species of shark, apart from the nurse shark, have 86 teeth
Eva, 10, and Cecily, 7, ask: how many Lego people in the world are there?
Thousands
Millions
Billions
Trillions
Astrid, 5½, asks: why do snails come out in the rain?
Snails usually mate in wet weather
They love to wash and shower in the rain
They come out to keep their skin moist and avoid drying out
They come out to drink water by licking it off leaves
Theo, 6¾, asks: how do bogeys form in your nose?
Little goblins come at night and put them there
They are dried-up bits of mucus, dirt and bacteria
The body produces them naturally – for early mankind they were a high source of protein
The body creates them as a protective barrier
Jude, 8, asks: why do pigs have curly tails?
Because they look cute
So that they can curl their tails around one another to do a kind of piggy kiss
We don’t know for sure
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
5 and above.
4 and above.
3 and above.
2 and above.
0 and above.
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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