Are leopards’ spots perfect circles, and why do sloths move so slowly? Try our kids’ quiz

Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian

1. Felix, 10, asks: are leopards’ spots (like those pictured above) perfect circles?

   1. Yes

   2. No, they look more like paw prints

   3. No, they look like roses

   4. Only leopard kittens have perfect circles; as they grow, they stretch into different shapes

2. Lucia, 7 and a half, asks: which predatory cat is the largest?

   1. The snow leopard

   2. The lynx

   3. The jaguar

   4. The Siberian tiger

3. Rex, 5, asks: what is the fastest train in the world?

   1. The Shanghai Maglev

   2. The InterCity Express in Germany

   3. The TGV in France

   4. Japan’s E5 “Bullet Trains”

4. Summer, 8, asks: why do sloths move so slowly?

   1. Sloths just love to sleep, so even when they move they’re half asleep

   2. It’s very hot where sloths live, so it’s hard for them to move quickly

   3. Sloths don’t have energy to move quickly because their diet doesn’t have many calories

   4. Sloths move slowly only in the day – at night they are very active

5. Gus, 6, asks: does space have an end?

   1. Yes, it ends a trillion miles past the sun

   2. Yes, it’s possible to see the end of space through the world’s most powerful telescope

   3. No, space goes on for ever

   4. This is something scientists are still trying to figure out

Solutions

1:C - Leopards’ spots aren’t circles, but are shaped a bit like roses. That’s how they got their name – rosettes! They’re jagged black circles made of marks, and brown inside with more dots like ink splats from a pen., 2:D - Siberian tigers can be 3 metres long and weigh up to 300kg. They live in the forests of Russia, as well as China and North Korea., 3:A - The world’s fastest public train is the Maglev between Shanghai’s airport and a city centre station. It can travel at 431kph (268mph), on a track using magnetic levitation rather than conventional steel wheels on steel rails., 4:C - Sloths are slow because their diet of leaves doesn’t give them much energy. They eat so few calories, they have evolved to use up what they do have really slowly – this is called a slow metabolic rate., 5:D - This is a question we don’t yet have the answer for! It’s possible if you travelled through space, you’d keep passing galaxies for ever, which would mean space has no end – or the universe might wrap back around on itself, so eventually you’d end up where you started but this would take SO long, it’s impossible to even imagine it.

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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