Worms
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50 free Worms trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Worm is one of the loosest words in biology. It covers flatworms, roundworms, ribbon worms and the segmented worms of soil and shore, groups that are only distantly related, and it is also pinned on plenty of creatures that are not worms at all. This quiz takes in the whole tangle. There are questions on parasites and the diseases they cause, on record-breaking and deep-sea species, on how worms feed, breed and repair themselves, and on the impostors that merely carry the name. A final stretch covers worms in language, legend, books, films and video games, including where the word bookworm came from. It suits biology students revising invertebrates, teachers after a ready-made review, and anyone who enjoys trivia with a slight squirm factor. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the set works as a study sheet as well as a game.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which former US president's foundation has led the fight to wipe out Guinea worm disease since 1986?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter said in 2015 that his last wish was to see the last Guinea worm die before he did. When his centre took up the fight in 1986, an estimated 3.5 million people a year were infected.
Q 02Which blood-feeding worms were classed as a medical device by US regulators in 2004?
Leeches
Leeches earn their place in microsurgery because their saliva carries hirudin, which stops blood clotting. They relieve blood congestion in reattached fingers and rebuilt ears.
Q 03Ringworm, the itchy red ring that spreads across the skin, is caused by what kind of organism?
A fungus
A fungus causes ringworm, and about 40 different kinds can do it. The same family of skin infections includes athlete's foot and jock itch.
Q 04The silkworm, raised in China for thousands of years for its silk, prefers the leaves of which tree?
Mulberry
Mulberry leaves, above all those of the white mulberry, are the silkworm's food. Millennia of selective breeding have left the adult moths dependent on humans to reproduce.
Q 05In Frank Herbert's Dune, the giant sandworms of Arrakis produce which priceless substance?
The spice
The spice, properly called melange, is made by sandworm larvae and makes safe interstellar travel possible. Harvesting it is deadly work, because the territorial worms attack the crews.
Q 06Which long pasta, similar to spaghetti, has an Italian name that literally means 'little worms'?
Vermicelli
Vermicelli comes from vermicello, the Italian diminutive of the word for worm. English speakers use the name for a strand thinner than spaghetti, but in Italy it is the thicker of the two.
Q 07Heartworm, a parasite that lodges in the heart and lungs of dogs, is spread by which biting insects?
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes carry heartworm larvae from one animal to the next with their bites. The adult worms can then live for five to seven years inside a dog.
Q 08In Old English legends such as Beowulf, 'wyrm', the ancestor of 'worm', named which creature?
A dragon
A dragon was a 'worm' to the Anglo-Saxons, whose word wyrm covered any long legless beast. The Lambton Worm of County Durham legend keeps the old meaning alive.
Q 09The shipworm, which riddled wooden hulls with tunnels for centuries, is really what kind of animal?
A clam
A clam in all but looks, the shipworm rasps into timber with its two small shells. Watching one tunnel safely through wood gave Marc Brunel the idea for the tunnelling shield.
Q 10Which country's Waitomo Caves draw tourists to see ceilings lit by thousands of glowworms?
New Zealand
New Zealand's glowworms are not worms but the larvae of a small gnat found nowhere else. Each one hangs up to 30 silk threads dotted with sticky droplets to snare flying insects.
Q 11Which of Britain's ribbon worms can reach 30 metres, making it one of the longest animals on Earth?
Bootlace worm
The bootlace worm is only 5 to 10 millimetres wide for all that length. One washed ashore at St Andrews in 1864 was put at more than 55 metres, though it may have been stretched.
Q 12Which flatworms, favourites of school biology labs, can regrow a whole body from one tiny sliver?
Planarians
Planarians can rebuild a complete animal from a piece as small as 1/279th of the original. The trick depends on neoblasts, adult stem cells scattered through the body.
Q 13Adult giant tube worms at deep-sea vents have no mouth or gut; what inside them supplies their food?
Bacteria
Q 21Which worm, known for giving children a night-time itch, is the commonest worm infection in the US?
Pinworm
Pinworm reaches about one in five American children at some point. The itch strikes at night because that is when the female worms crawl out to lay their eggs.
Q 22Schistosomiasis flatworms, caught by wading in tropical lakes, first develop inside which animals?
Snails
Snails of certain freshwater kinds release the larvae, which is why the illness is also called snail fever. Among tropical parasitic diseases, only malaria does more economic harm.
Q 23Filarial worms that nest in the lymph vessels can cause which severe swelling of the limbs?
Elephantiasis
Bacteria packed into a spongy organ turn the vents' hydrogen sulfide into energy for the worm. The animals were first seen in 1977, on an expedition to the Galápagos Rift.
Q 14Trichinosis, caused by tiny worms coiled in muscle, classically comes from which undercooked meat?
Pork
Pork from infected pigs was the classic route for trichinosis. In North America, though, the meat most often to blame is now bear.
Q 15The Worm Moon, a North American name tied to the spring thaw, is the full moon of which month?
March
March brings the Worm Moon, long explained by earthworms surfacing as the soil warms. A 1760s account by Captain Jonathan Carver says it really meant larvae emerging from thawing tree bark.
Q 16On Sesame Street, an orange worm named Slimey is the beloved pet of which Muppet?
Oscar the Grouch
Oscar the Grouch keeps Slimey in a trash can far bigger inside than it looks, with room for a swimming pool and an ice rink. Grouch is not only his mood but the name of his species.
Q 17Mealworms, cleared as human food in the EU in 2021, are the young of which kind of insect?
A beetle
A beetle, the yellow mealworm beetle, is what each mealworm grows into. Switzerland approved the larvae as food in 2017, four years earlier.
Q 18The slow worm, a shiny limbless animal of European gardens that can shed its tail, is really what?
A lizard
A lizard without legs, the slow worm may be the longest-lived of its kind. One male lived at Copenhagen Zoo from 1892 until 1946.
Q 19Waxworms, caterpillars that usually raid beehives, can eat and digest which man-made material?
Plastic
Plastic film made of polyethylene is turned by waxworms into ethylene glycol, which biodegrades quickly. Beekeepers know the same caterpillars as pests that chew through honeycomb.
Q 20Which parasite, dubbed the 'germ of laziness', did a 1909 Rockefeller drive target in the US South?
Hookworm
Hookworm larvae in contaminated soil get in through the skin, which is why walking barefoot is the main risk. John D. Rockefeller gave a million dollars to launch the campaign across 11 states.
Elephantiasis develops in only some of those infected, since most cases show no symptoms at all. The worms do their damage by nesting in the lymphatic vessels and disrupting their work.
Q 24Which worm-killing drug, a weapon against river blindness, won its discoverers a 2015 Nobel Prize?
Ivermectin
Ivermectin traces back to a microbe that Satoshi Ōmura found in soil near a Japanese golf course. William Campbell of Merck then showed that it cleared worms from infected mice.
Q 25Loa loa, an African worm spread by deer flies, is notorious for visibly crossing which body part?
The eye
The eye is where the adult worm sometimes surfaces, crossing the white for anything from a few hours to a week. That habit has earned it the common name African eye worm.
Q 26The lancet liver fluke drives which insects up grass blades at dusk, to be eaten by grazing sheep?
Ants
Ants infected by the fluke leave the colony as the evening cools, climb a grass blade and lock their jaws onto its tip until dawn. Farmers avoid grazing flocks early or late for that reason.
Q 27Horsehair worms growing inside crickets alter their hosts' behaviour so that the insects do what?
Jump into water
Jump into water is what the infected insect does, drowning itself so the adult worm can swim free. Mating worms then tangle into tight balls known as Gordian knots.
Q 28Which worms are so plentiful in soil and sea that they make up about 80% of all individual animals?
Nematodes
Nematodes, or roundworms, can number more than a million in a single square metre. Their name comes from the Greek for thread.
Q 29The tiny lab worm C. elegans famously survived the 2003 loss of which Space Shuttle?
Columbia
Columbia broke up on re-entry, yet the worms carried as an experiment survived the fall. Their descendants later went back into space aboard Endeavour.
Q 30Osedax 'zombie worms', first found in Monterey Bay in 2002, feed by boring into what on the seabed?
Whale bones
Whale bones are dissolved with acid from the worms' root-like tissue to reach the fats inside. Each female is more than 20,000 times larger than the microscopic males that live in her tube.