Bug Quiz

This is a quiz about bugs.

Oh, I hear you, you literal-minded entomology nerds — it's not about the members of the order Hemiptera, the "true bugs." It's about bugs as normal people define them: insects.

And I might even throw in spiders and mites, just to mess with your bug-addled heads.

Which of these are insects?

Spiders

Mites

Grasshoppers

Shrimp

All of the above

You chose: You chose:

Grasshoppers are the only insects here. Spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks, centipedes, trilobites, shrimp, crabs and lobsters are all arthropods, but they don't belong to the class Insecta.

Beetles are one kind of insect. You know some of them well — ladybugs, fireflies and dung beetles are all beetles. How many species of beetles have been described?

4,000

20,000

100,000

350,000

You chose: You chose:

About a quarter of all the described species on Earth are beetles. Not a quarter of all the described insects — a quarter of ALL the described species on Earth. Plants, apes, everything.

True or False: Caterpillars are insects.

True

False

You chose: You chose:

True. A caterpillar is a juvenile butterfly or moth. It eats and grows and eventually wraps itself up in a cocoon. Inside that cocoon — and you probably learned this in school, but it is totally crazy so I am telling you again — it breaks itself down and turns itself into an adult with wings. Whoa.

Only one of these statements is true of all ants. Which one?

They have a bend in their antennae.

They are wingless.

They can't sting.

They have eight legs.

You chose: You chose:

An ant antenna looks like an arm with a bend in the elbow. Some ants have wings, and they all have six legs. And if you think ants can't sting, go step barefoot in a nest of fire ants and then let me know what you think.

True or False: A butterfly will die if you touch its wings.

True

False

You chose: You chose:

Butterflies are tougher than they look. You shouldn't go around manhandling them — you could break a wing. But they lose a lot of scales from their wings in the normal course of life and keep on flying.

Which of these suck your blood?

Male mosquitoes

Female mosquitoes

Both males and females

You can't fool me — mosquitoes don't have separate sexes.

You chose: You chose:

Female mosquitoes suck your blood. The males eat nectar from plants. The females need your protein so they can make their eggs. It's so nice of you to contribute to the next generation!

This next question will reveal how well you paid attention in biology class. What is the scientific name of the common fruit fly?

Pogonomyrnex barbatus

Drosophila melanogaster

Arabidopsis thaliana

Pan troglodytes

You chose: You chose:

Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most important model organisms used by biologists. It has been used to do a lot of major science, especially genetics. If you took genetics in college, you probably have experience knocking them unconscious and sorting them by eye color. (This is really tedious.)

True or False: The term "bug," as in a problem with a computer, originated when someone found a real live (or dead) bug in a computer.

True

False

You chose: You chose:

Engineers used this term for decades before a famous incident in the 1940s, in which a problem with a Navy computer was traced to a moth. The workers were amused by the moth precisely because "bug" was already being used to describe computer problems. The moth is in the Smithsonian.

How do termites digest wood?

They make a protein called cellulase that breaks down cellulose.

They're like cows - they have specialized microorganisms in their guts.

They don't actually eat wood.

You chose: You chose:

Termites are like cows that live in your walls. Ok, they're not very much like cows, but they do digest a little like cows — with the help of microorganisms in their guts.

What is the study of insects called?

Etymology

Entomology

Insectology

Paleontology

You chose: You chose:

Entomology. The etymology of the word entomology is this: Greek entomos, which means segmented or notched; in English, -logy means the study of something (and also comes from Greek).

In On the Banks of Plum Creek, what kind of insect descends on Laura Ingalls's family farm and ruins their crops?

Leaf-cutter ants

Cicadas

Locusts

Ladybugs

You chose: You chose:

Rocky Mountain Locusts used to cover the American West in vast, crop-destroying swarms; now they appear to be extinct. The last time a Rocky Mountain locust specimen was collected was in 1902.

Special bonus question: Why are bugs so awesome?

They have a lot of legs.

Some of them fly.

If you like bugs, it kind of creeps people out.

All of the above.

You chose: You chose:

All of the above, my friend. All of the above.

Correct

Um, it seems like your bug brain has been on mothballs a little too long. Study up and try to improve your score!

Correct

You can probably tell a caterpillar from a butterfly, but you might want to brush up on your phylum and families. Try again!

Correct

Not bad! You probably know your spiders from your spider mites. Play again and see if you can get a perfect score!

Correct

Wow! We can’t imagine a better score than yours!

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