A section of the zoo there are only snakes and lizards. There are 24 legs and 24 tails in the the section. How many snakes are there?

Question

https://www.mathformoney.app/ratio-word-problems-for-6th-grade.html

Answer 1

Let the x and y denote number of snakes and lizards.

Since snakes have no legs and lizards have 4 legs. So the equation can be written as

0x + 4y = 24

=> 4y = 24

=> y = 6 --------------------------(1)

Also, both snakes and lizards have one tail. Therefore the equation can be formed as

x + y = 24

=> x = 24 - y

=> x = 24 - 6  (from equation 1)

=> x = 18

So there are total of 18 snakes in the section of the zoo.