Christine Meisner, age 9, of Richmond, D.C., Canada, for her question:

ARE WORMS AND SNAKES IN THE SAME FAMILY?

There are dozens of worms and dozens of snakes  and all of them have long tube shape bodies with no legs. For this reason, a person might think that these animals must be related. But this is not so at all. We can see this for ourselves when we take a closer look at the worms and the snakes.

Every snake has a definite head with a pair of staring eyes. A worm has a head, though it is so simple you can hardly tell it from his tail. And he does not have a pair of eyes. A snake has a definite mouth with teeth and perhaps fangs. A worm has a simple mouth  with no teeth. The snake has a scaly skin, and the worm has a soft, moist skin. However, the real differences are inside. The snake has a backbone with dozens of bony ribs  and a worm has no bones at all. Actually, the two creatures are so different they are not related at all.