Quiz Youngsters age 10-12

Try to catch up.

The skeleton of the sperm whale is 14.21 metres long. It was a male, age 15. He weighed about 30,000 kilos at the beach as he got stranded. The skeleton weighs about 2,500 kilos.

Have you met him yet? He's swimming in one of our aquariums.

Coral is a collective name for sea animals of only a few millimeters, which, with their tentacles, look like a sea anemone. There are 4,500 species known. It's a cavediver.

Rays are the closest relatives of sharks. There are about 450 species known. Almost all of them have a flattened shape with the jaw and goblets at the bottom. Most rays lay quietly on the seabed for most of the time, but there are also species that swim all day in schools like the giant manta. Like sharks, their skeleton consists of cartilage. Suffering from extensive fishing is something that rays also have in common with sharks.

Pythons catch the prey by fixing them and then catching them with their jaws as fast as lightning. Both the upper and lower jaws contain many backward curved teeth that serve to anchor the prey into the jaw. Then the muscular body is rotated around the prey after which it is strung. The prey does not die because the body is compressed as it is often claimed, but because the body windings are tightened more tightly after each exhalation of the prey so that it suffocates.

'Octo' means '8' in Latin: the Ancient Roman language and 'Pus' originates from the Greek word 'Podo' meaning 'foot'. The Octopus is solitary and occurs on (rocky) coral reefs, on sandy soils or on seagrass fields to depths of 100 meters (possibly even up to 300 meters in depth at a particular species). The animal chases mainly at night and lives on shellfish and fish. The octopus himself forms a prey for countless animals, including seabirds and whales. His shelter, sometimes called 'octopus castle', is often surrounded by stones and shells which the animal is collecting. The Octopus can move quickly by pumping water from a pipe-shaped organ (the siphon). At imminent danger, he will empty his ink bag, potentially confusing his enemies.

Seals (Phocidae) are a family of marine mammals. They belong to the meat eaters (Carnivors). Seals in the Netherlands are the most common in the Waddenzee. They do not belong in this comparison because the seal is not a whale species.

The female brings during the mating, when their tails oare entangled, the egg cells in small numbers simultaneously in the pouch of the mal. The male then fertilizes them with his seed. The male protects the embryos in his stomach until they can live independently, after which they will leave the pouch.

The shark is a non toxic animal. The Lionfish and stonefish are highly toxic.