Hint
A beetle has six legs, a spider has eight legs, and a mouse has four legs.
Answer
102 animals, 34 of each.
Reasoning
As there are the same number of each animal, for every beetle, spider, and mouse counted, there are a total of 18 legs.
612 ÷ 18 = 34 of each animal.
Which gives a total of 34 x 3 = 102 animals.
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Puzzle 87
After visiting one of my very old relatives, I travelled home in their old jalopy. The car was old and battered, it had a leak from the petrol tank, and I was stuck in second gear.
This meant that I could only travel along at a steady 30 miles per hour and managed a paltry 20 miles per gallon of fuel.
At the start of the journey, I had placed exactly 10 gallons of fuel into the tank. I knew though, that the fuel tank lost fuel at the rate of half a gallon per hour.
Just as I arrived home, the car stopped because it had run out of fuel and I had only just made it.
How far was it from my relative's house to my home?
Hint
You might find Pythagoras' theorem very useful [a2 + b2 = c2].
Answer
148 inches.
We can use Pythagoras' theorem if we draw an imaginary line across to create a right-angled triangle.
The hypotenuse is equal to the rope's length R. The bottom of the triangle is 48 inches. The vertical side is R − 8 (the difference between 20 inches and 12 inches).
