Q 01/05

How many legs does an adult insect typically have?

A) Three

B) Six

C) Twelve

D) Twenty-four

Answer · why

B) Six

Six is no accident: it is the fewest legs that allow a tripod gait, in which three feet stay planted, two on one side and one on the other, while the ...

Q 02/05

An adult insect's body is divided into how many main sections?

A) One

B) Three

C) Seven

D) Fourteen

Answer · why

B) Three

Three: head, thorax and abdomen. Spiders and scorpions get by with two, because a single front section does the work of both head and thorax.

Q 03/05

Albert's swarm of 1875, which covered an area larger than California, was made up of which insect?

A) Desert locust

B) Mormon cricket

C) Rocky Mountain locust

D) Periodical cicada

Answer · why

C) Rocky Mountain locust

The Rocky Mountain locust darkened the sky from the Dakotas to Texas in the 1870s, yet within about thirty years it had vanished; the last live specim...

Q 04/05

Which insect secretes the resin used for French polish and glossy candy coatings?

A) Weevil

B) Cicada

C) Lac bug

D) Katydid

Answer · why

C) Lac bug

The lac bug's resin, scraped from tree bark in India and Thailand, is shellac; until vinyl replaced it, most gramophone records were pressed from the ...

Q 05/05

Which of these insects lives in highly organized colonies with a queen, workers and soldiers?

A) Praying Mantis

B) Solitary bee

C) Ant

D) Dragonfly

Answer · why

C) Ant

Ants are eusocial insects living in colonies of a few dozen to millions, with a division of labor: the queen, workers and soldiers each play a specifi...