Animals by Numbers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Yes with up to 600 vertebrae

The vertebral column of snakes is elongated and has more vertebrae than any other animal. It may have up to six hundred with up to 450 vertebrae in the body and 200 in the tail. The difference between body and tail vertebrae is the body vertebrae has a rib either side of the spine (except for a few vertebrae directly behind of the head).

The vertebrae have five articulation points, the main one at the contact point between the main, central bodies of the bones (centra), which are ball-and-socket joints.

These five points permit sideways and vertical rotation but, paradoxically, stop any twisting of the vertebral column, thus achieving both flexibility and rigidity.

Answer: Crustacean

The concept of bilateral symmetry in the animal kingdom has been around almost as long as animals have been on earth. True, jellyfish and similar animal display radial symmetry and starfish and their relatives have taken it a step further with pentaradial symmetry, but even the most rudimentary of organisms, such as flatworms (no internal organs), have two eyes.

These copepod organisms are small (mostly about the size of a grain of rice; range 0.2 - 10 mm) and have an exoskeleton. It is unclear why they have one eye centred in the middle of the head but it appears at some stage they had two eyes and through some sort of developmental gene mutation they ended up with only one eye.

Answer: Clown Fish

Clown fish are born male. The most dominant male will turn into a female, then surround herself with a brood of male admirers.

The exact opposite occurs with a fish called a wrasse. When the dominant male dies or goes AWOL, the largest female will transform into a male.
Banana slugs are hermaphrodites. They seek a mate of similar size (150-200mm!) and insert each of their penises located on their head into the new found mate.

Cuttlefish have the ability to change its appearance to get the girl. When it comes between a male and female cuttlefish a male will change to look like a female to the other male's side but retain the masculine look on his other to the girl of his dreams.

Answer: Squid

The squid has two lateral hearts, called branchial hearts, that feed the gills. These two hearts surround a larger heart that pumps blood systemically.

Squid blood does not contain haemoglobin for oxygen transport but hemocyanin, a copper containing protein. This is why the squid heart and blood has a greenish tinge. Another interesting "three" squid fact is the heart is further divided into three chambers: two auricles and one ventricle. This is because blood is received from the branchial hearts and then is pumped systemically.

Answer: Llamas

The four stomach compartments are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. In ruminants such as cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, deer, antelopes and yaks, the food is mixed with copious amounts of saliva which separates into solid and liquid components. The bolus (solids) is returned to the mouth to be chewed against to make smaller pieces. The smaller clumps are then returned to the first two stomach stages to try to break down the sugar bonds in cellulose by microbial fermentation. The liquid component containing the nutrients is then passed into the third compartment, the omasum, where water and most of the inorganic minerals are absorbed into the blood. In the last compartment, the abomasum, the nutrients and microbes are passed into the bloodstream.

Llamas, like their immediate relatives and camels, are Camelidae. These creatures have a three compartment stomach and, while digestion is similar, by definition these animals cannot be classified as ruminants without a four part stomach.

Answer: Red kangaroo

According to the "New Scientist" , Macropus rufus may be the first "pentapedal" animal. It uses its tail as a leg pushing it forward as it walks.
To walk, kangaroos first lean forward, then place their front legs on the ground. Then they move forward their larger back legs, before releasing their front legs from the ground. Then the tail, curled up but in contact with the ground, flexes forward against the ground and straightens propelling the kangaroo forward. The cycle is then repeated.

The kangaroo tail is muscular and powerful. If threatened, it can rear back on its tail threatening to kick an attacker with its powerfully clawed hind legs.

Answer: Bats and dolphins

Dolphins and bats (the latter are not blind, merely nocturnal) are equipped with the sixth sense of echolocation. High frequency clicking sounds generate feedback when the sound waves bounce back from an object. Both animals can then 'picture' a three dimensional 'map' of their environment. This is akin to the way radar works.

Sea turtles and pigeons have the sixth sense of magnetoreception. These animals have a nervous system that allows them to encode information on the earth's magnetic field's location, polarity and intensity. This allows these animals to return to the same place over and over again.

Both the platypus and the shark have the ability to perceive electrical impulses from other living things which allows them to find prey and navigate in unclear water.

Spiders have mechanoreceptors on their legs for measuring mechanical strain on their exoskeleton. This allows them to judge the size and type of creatures caught in their web.

Pythons, rattlesnakes and boas can detect infra-red changes in the environment which is useful for tracking down prey.

Answer: Polar Bear

Some animals associated with the Arctic, like the polar bear and the snowy owl, stay white all year, while some animals change colours with the seasons. Why they do this is not clear. Camouflage is an evolutionary reason that selects for seasonally white fur. Also a white coat gives better insulation because melanin, a protein responsible for colour in hair, is not present in white fur, leaving hair shafts with air spaces.

Some hares, such as the Arctic hare (Lepus arcticus), the mountain hare (L. timidus) and the snowshoe hare (L. americanus) all change to white in winter as do weasels, the Peary caribou and all three species of Ptarmigans.

Interestingly collared lemmings turn white but they are in a different genus from 'true' lemmings which remain brown.

Answer: Two

An arachnid has not only eight legs but eight jointed legs. This class includes spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks. Arachnids evolved from marine scorpion-like creatures but these marine animals died out before the dinosaurs set foot on the planet. They differ from insects as their bodies have two segments compared to the insects' three.

The head and thorax areas are a single unit (cephalothorax or prosoma) which is joined onto the abdomen (opisthosoma). The cephalothorax has six pairs of appendages, of which only the back four pairs are legs used for walking.

The first pair is the chelicerae and is often pincer or fang-like and used for feeding. The second pair is pedipalps which have several functions: catching prey; if enlarged they can act as legs; and fertilizing females. Most arachnids eat by disgorging their stomach enzymes over the food or prey.

This liquefies the food which is then sucked up by the arachnid.

Answer: Chimpanzee

The human has an average gestational period of 266 days, which is eight days short of nine months. This compares with 227, 330, 435 and 645 days for the chimpanzee, llama, giraffe and African elephant. Size is not the only factor in determining gestational periods as velvet worms carry their young for up to 15 months and some sharks up to three years.

In short, in mammals at least, including human, it all comes down to the size of the umbilical cord. If animal A is double the dimensions of animal B, its volume is eight times Animal B but the cross-sectional are of the corresponding umbilical cord will only be four times bigger and hence take twice as long for the necessary nutrients to reach the foetal mammal. There needs to be some adjustment for blood pressure differences, length of the cord and number of offspring born.