Q 01/05

What do female praying mantises sometimes do to their partners during mating, in about a quarter of wild encounters?

A) Blind them

B) Sting them

C) Eat them

D) Bury them

Answer · why

C) Eat them

Female mantises eat them in about a quarter of encounters seen in the wild. Poorly fed females are the likeliest to turn a suitor into a meal.

Q 02/05

The word mantis, borrowed from Ancient Greek, originally carried which meaning that suits the insect's solemn pose?

A) Hunter

B) Dancer

C) Warrior

D) Prophet

Answer · why

D) Prophet

Prophet is what the Greek mántis means. The Greeks credited the insect with the power to show lost travellers the way home.

Q 03/05

Praying mantises resemble stick insects, but which household insects are among their closest living relatives?

A) Cockroaches

B) Clothes moths

C) Earwigs

D) Silverfish

Answer · why

A) Cockroaches

Cockroaches and termites share the superorder Dictyoptera with mantises. Mantises are thought to have evolved from roach-like ancestors.

Q 04/05

Newcastle University researchers fitted praying mantises with tiny versions of what to test their depth vision?

A) Contact lenses

B) 3D glasses

C) Eye patches

D) Tinted goggles

Answer · why

B) 3D glasses

3D glasses, stuck on with beeswax, let the team screen films in an insect cinema. Because red is hard for mantises to see, the lenses were green and b...

Q 05/05

Most praying mantises have a single ear, so scientists call the insect an auditory version of which mythical creature?

A) Minotaur

B) Griffin

C) Cyclops

D) Hydra

Answer · why

C) Cyclops

Cyclops fits because the ear is one organ on the midline of the body. It hears only high-pitched sound, such as the calls of hunting bats.