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Why do baboons have bare bottoms, and do all mosquitoes bite? Try our kids’ quiz

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brain-teasers for future quizzes


  1. Why do baboons like the one pictured above have bare bottoms?

    1. To help them be comfy when they are sitting down

    2. So they don’t need to brush and clean the hair around their bottom

    3. To keep their bottoms cool

    4. The hair on baboons’ bottoms falls off when they are babies, as they keep sliding down tree branches, and it never grows back

  2. Tristan, 9, asks: how many countries are there in the world?

    1. There could be as many as 555

    2. There could be as many as 206

    3. Nobody has ever counted so we’re not sure

    4. 142

  3. Lucia, 7 and a half, asks: do all mosquitoes bite?

    1. Yes

    2. No, only the males

    3. No, only the females

    4. No, only baby mosquitoes bite

  4. Oak, 8, asks: what sound does a cassowary make?

    1. A deep growl

    2. A high-pitched squawk

    3. It doesn’t make a sound

    4. A chirping squeak

  5. Kipp, 8, asks: how heavy is the heaviest wolf?

    1. 70kg – about the same as a washing machine

    2. 181kg – about the same as the heart of a blue whale

    3. 50kg – about the same as the world’s largest species of octopus

    4. 40kg – about the same as an average loo

Solutions

1:A - The pads of skin on a baboon’s bottom are like a travel cushion, so baboons can be comfy. They can even sleep sitting up!, 2:B - This is a great question, but tricky to answer – even experts can’t agree! Some say 195; others 206. “Country” describes different things. For example, Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are countries, but together are the United Kingdom, called a sovereign country. Some countries, such as Italy, were made when lots of small kingdoms joined up; others when a big country broke up., 3:C - Only female mosquitoes bite people and animals, to get a blood meal, which they need to produce eggs. So if you hear that “eeeeeee” sound, watch out!, 4:A - A cassowary is a huge flightless bird in Australia and Papua New Guinea. It makes a deep growling sound – the lowest frequency of any bird’s – which travels a long way, so is good for calling to each other in dense forest., 5:A - The world’s largest wolf is the Mackenzie Valley wolf. It roams parts of Alaska and Canada, and Yellowstone national park in America. It weighs around 70kg and can be up to 2 metres long.

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. Does your child have a question? Submit one here