You have gotten reservations from Fly By Night Tours to an island off the coast of Florida. You arrive and find out that the island is occupied and administered by alligators and crocodiles. You are confronted by a committe of three of these reptiles with the following manifesto:"Answer this right and you'll have a great vacation. Answer this wrong, and you shall be chomped!" You are equipped with the following information:Alligators always tell the truth whereas crocodiles always lie. You are allowed to ask one question of each friendly-looking reptile and, then, you will be asked to say how many of these are crocodiles and how many are alligators. You ask the first reptile if he is a crocodile. He answers the question. The second reptile then tells you that the first denied being a crocodile. The third friendly reptile says that the first reptile is really a crocodile.How many of the three reptiles are crocodiles?

Question

You have gotten reservations from Fly By Night Tours to an island off the coast of Florida. You arrive and find out that the island is occupied and administered by alligators and crocodiles. You are confronted by a committe of three of these reptiles with the following manifesto:"Answer this right and you'll have a great vacation. Answer this wrong, and you shall be chomped!" You are equipped with the following information:Alligators always tell the truth whereas crocodiles always lie. You are allowed to ask one question of each friendly-looking reptile and, then, you will be asked to say how many of these are crocodiles and how many are alligators. You ask the first reptile if he is a crocodile. He answers the question. The second reptile then tells you that the first denied being a crocodile. The third friendly reptile says that the first reptile is really a crocodile.How many of the three reptiles are crocodiles?

One.

Answer 1

To solve this puzzle, we need to analyze the information provided and use logical reasoning. Let's break it down step by step:

1. Alligators always tell the truth, whereas crocodiles always lie. This means that if a reptile is a crocodile, it will lie about its identity, and if it's an alligator, it will tell the truth.

2. You asked the first reptile if he is a crocodile, and it answered the question. This means that if the reptile is an alligator, it would truthfully say it's not a crocodile. Conversely, if it's a crocodile, it would lie and say it's not a crocodile.

3. The second reptile tells you that the first one denied being a crocodile. Based on the information given, we can conclude that if the first reptile is an alligator, it would have told the truth and denied being a crocodile. However, if the first reptile is a crocodile, it would have lied and also denied being a crocodile.

4. The third friendly reptile says that the first reptile is really a crocodile. Now, if the third reptile is an alligator, it would tell the truth, and we can conclude that the first reptile is indeed a crocodile. However, if the third reptile is a crocodile, it would lie and falsely claim that the first reptile is a crocodile.

Based on this analysis, we can conclude that the first reptile is a crocodile since all the evidence points in that direction. Therefore, there is one crocodile among the three reptiles.