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
Why do baboons like the one pictured above have bare bottoms?
To help them be comfy when they are sitting down
So they don’t need to brush and clean the hair around their bottom
To keep their bottoms cool
The hair on baboons’ bottoms falls off when they are babies, as they keep sliding down tree branches, and it never grows back
Tristan, 9, asks: how many countries are there in the world?
There could be as many as 555
There could be as many as 206
Nobody has ever counted so we’re not sure
142
Lucia, 7 and a half, asks: do all mosquitoes bite?
Yes
No, only the males
No, only the females
No, only baby mosquitoes bite
Oak, 8, asks: what sound does a cassowary make?
A deep growl
A high-pitched squawk
It doesn’t make a sound
A chirping squeak
Kipp, 8, asks: how heavy is the heaviest wolf?
70kg – about the same as a washing machine
181kg – about the same as the heart of a blue whale
50kg – about the same as the world’s largest species of octopus
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
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. Does your child have a question? Submit one here