Mosquito Trivia
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45 free Mosquito trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Mosquitoes kill more people than any other animal, yet most of the 3,600 species never touch blood, and even in the biting species the males live on nectar. This quiz covers the insect itself: what the name means, how the female saws into skin with a thousandth of the force of a needle, why she rests for days after a meal, what attracts her to some people more than others, and how fast a male beats his wings. It also finds the giant 'elephant mosquito' whose larvae eat other mosquitoes. The second half is about the diseases and the fight against them: Laveran and Ronald Ross working out malaria, Walter Reed proving Carlos Finlay's yellow-fever hypothesis, quinine from cinchona bark and artemisinin from sweet wormwood, insecticide-treated nets, DDT, mosquitofish and sterile males, and the spread of the Asian tiger mosquito and Zika. A few questions cover mosquitoes in culture, from a 1912 animated film to a plywood warplane and the amber of Jurassic Park. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on mosquitoes, the main genera and the diseases they carry, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Try our Insects and Malaria-adjacent Science quizzes for more.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'mosquito' comes from Spanish and Portuguese and literally means what?
Little fly
Little fly: yet the Mosquito Coast of Central America takes its name from the local Miskito people.
Q 02A mosquito bite itches because your body is reacting to what?
Its saliva
Its saliva: she injects it to stop your blood clotting while she drinks, and your immune system's reaction to it is what makes the bite itch.
Q 03What do a mosquito's shrunken hind wings do?
Steady its flight
Steady its flight: called halteres, they beat in time with the wings and work like gyroscopes, sensing every twist and turn.
Q 04What do ALL mosquitoes, male and female, drink?
Flower nectar
Flower nectar: while sipping it, mosquitoes pollinate some flowers, including a Platanthera orchid whose scent lures Aedes mosquitoes in.
Q 05Roughly how many people die from mosquito-borne diseases each year?
Around a million
Around a million: malaria alone killed about 610,000 people in 2024, and insecticide resistance in Anopheles mosquitoes now threatens progress against it.
Q 06Which insecticide, used against malaria mosquitoes in World War II, did the US ban for farm use in 1972?
DDT
DDT: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring raised public alarm over it, yet a global treaty still lets countries spray it against malaria mosquitoes.
Q 07About how many times a second do male mosquitoes beat their wings?
About 600
About 600: females beat their wings more slowly, and surveillance traps play a female's lower flight tone to lure the males in.
Q 08In hot weather, about how fast can a mosquito grow from egg to flying adult?
In about five days
In about five days: yet some mosquito eggs can survive dry conditions for months, hatching only when water finally reaches them.
Q 09Why do male mosquitoes often gather in swarms around dusk?
To mate
To mate: females fly into the swarm and pair off in mid-air, and once mated, a female usually refuses to mate again.
Q 10What does a female mosquito mainly need a blood meal for?
Making eggs
Making eggs: blood supplies the protein her eggs need, so she rests two or three days to digest it before laying, and males never bite at all.
Q 11Which mosquito genus, home of the common house mosquito, lays its eggs in floating rafts?
Culex
Culex: females float rafts of up to 300 eggs on still water, even in a puddle or a tin can.
Q 12A typical mosquito larva breathes air through what?
A siphon on its abdomen
A siphon on its abdomen: most larvae hang at an angle to breathe through it, while Anopheles larvae have none and lie flat on the surface.
Q 13Besides breath and scent, what else from a person helps mosquitoes home in?
Body heat
Body heat: yet warmth alone barely works, and in a 2023 Zambia field study heated targets drew malaria mosquitoes only when paired with breath or scent.
Q 21Which cabinet minister ordered biting-insect collections from British colonies in 1898, boosting mosquito taxonomy?
Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain: the specimens went to the British Museum, where Frederick Theobald built them into a five-volume monograph on the world's mosquitoes.
Q 22Which chemical is the common active ingredient in mosquito repellents applied to the skin?
DEET
DEET: it was first developed to protect US soldiers in insect-infested areas, and only reached the general public in 1957.
Q 23Winsor McCay's 1912 animated film about a giant insect tormenting a sleeping man is called what?
How a Mosquito Operates
Q 14People highly attractive to mosquitoes produce more of what on their skin?
Carboxylic acids
Carboxylic acids: and the pull lasts, since the most attractive people stayed on top when tested again, for several years in one study.
Q 15Which colours are mosquitoes visually drawn to after they detect carbon dioxide?
Red and orange
Red and orange: human skin of every tone is dominated by those wavelengths, and filtering them out of the light stopped the attraction in tests.
Q 16Engineers have copied a mosquito's piercing mouthparts to design what?
Painless needles
Painless needles: a mosquito's bundle of six fine stylets saws into skin so gently that she can often drink unnoticed.
Q 17Which continent has no mosquitoes?
Antarctica
Antarctica: yet the Arctic has mosquitoes whose summer swarms torment caribou herds.
Q 18Where do caribou herds often head to escape swarms of Arctic mosquitoes?
Windy ridges
Windy ridges: wind and cool air keep the insects off, so harassed herds bunch into huge groups on high ground or along seacoasts.
Q 19In 2025, mosquitoes were found for the first time in which previously mosquito-free country?
Iceland
Iceland: a citizen scientist caught three Culiseta annulata on moth-bait ropes, a cold-hardy species that can survive winter by sheltering as adults.
Q 20Which smelly cheese attracts malaria mosquitoes as strongly as the smell of human feet?
Limburger
Limburger: its rind is ripened by Brevibacterium, the same kind of bacteria that makes human feet smell.
How a Mosquito Operates: the giant mosquito drinks so much from the sleeping man that it swells up and explodes.
Q 24The de Havilland Mosquito, an unarmed World War II bomber that relied on speed, was built mostly from what?
Wood
Wood: de Havilland expected aluminium and steel to run short in wartime, so furniture workshops helped build it, earning it the nickname Wooden Wonder.
Q 25Which cocktail is said to have begun as a way to make anti-malaria quinine palatable in British India?
Gin and tonic
Gin and tonic: tonic water began as quinine mixed with soda and sugar to hide its bitterness, and the cocktail is thought to have been born in India.
Q 26In Jurassic Park, dinosaur DNA is recovered from blood inside prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in what?
Amber
Amber-trapped mosquitoes really exist, but DNA degrades far too fast to survive tens of millions of years.
Q 27The genus name Anopheles comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Useless
'Useless': Johann Meigen coined the name in 1818, yet female Anopheles are the mosquitoes that carry the parasites behind human malaria.
Q 28Which mosquito-borne virus was linked to babies born with unusually small heads in Brazil in 2015?
Zika
Zika: as evidence grew that it causes microcephaly and other birth defects, WHO declared a global health emergency in February 2016.
Q 29The Asian tiger mosquito is unusual among mosquitoes because it feeds mainly when?
In the daytime
In the daytime: it is also called the forest day mosquito, and it spread worldwide largely in shipments of used tyres and 'lucky bamboo'.
Q 30The word malaria comes from medieval Italian meaning what?
Bad air
Bad air: people blamed foul vapours rising from swamps, when the real culprits were the mosquitoes breeding in them.