Who invented the paperclip and what’s the smallest animal? Try our kids’ quiz

Molly Oldfield
·2-min read
<span>Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian</span>
Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian

  1. Kenzie, 9, asks: who invented the paperclip?

    1. The Gem Manufacturing Company invented it

    2. John Brown from England invented it

    3. Mario and Luigi from Brooklyn

    4. Percy Jackson from New York

  2. Maisie, 4, asks: what’s the smallest animal in the world?

    1. A bunny rabbit

    2. An ant

    3. A myxozoa

    4. An amoeba

  3. Katie, 7, asks: what is the smallest primate in the world?

    1. Proboscis monkey

    2. Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur

    3. Howler monkey

    4. Bonobo

  4. Lottie, 11, asks: how many eyelashes does the average 9-year-old child have?

    1. 90-160 eyelashes on the top lid, 75-80 on the bottom

    2. 200 eyelashes all together

    3. It’s impossible to count because nine-year-olds are always rushing about

    4. It really depends on how often you wash your face – the more you wash, the more eyelashes you get

  5. Cas, 8, asks: why do sheep have funny-shaped pupils?

    1. They have sheep-shaped pupils to recognise each other

    2. Sheep have the same round pupils as humans do

    3. Sheep have rectangular pupils so they have a wide field of vision and can look out for predators

    4. Different species of sheep have different pupils

Solutions

1:A - The Gem-style paperclip is the one we use most today. It is thought to have been made by the Gem Manufacturing Company in Britain in the 1870s, but we don’t know who within the company invented it., 2:C - The smallest animal is in the myxozoa family. These tiny, jellyfish-like creatures are between 0.010mm and 0.3mm long. There are more than 2,100 myxozoan species, but scientists suspect thousands more are still to be discovered., 3:B - Madame Berthe’s mouse lemurs live in Madagascar. They are the world’s smallest primate, and weigh the same as a third of an apple – about 35 grammes. Their head and body length can be as small as 9cm., 4:A - Children and adults have about 90–160 lashes on their upper eyelid, and 75-80 on their lower eyelid. , 5:C - Sheep have rectangular, horizontal pupils with a wide field of vision, so they can see almost everything around them without moving their head. As they lower and raise their heads to graze, their eyes rotate so their pupils stay parallel to the ground. This helps them watch for predators.

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 podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and the new Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book.