Amazing Animals: Insect Quiz

Estimated Completion Time
1 min
Amazing Animals: Insect Quiz
Image: LAWRENCE LAWRY/SPL/Getty Images

About This Quiz

When your stomach starts growling, do you ever yearn for toasted beetles or sauteed grubs? If those culinary selections turn your stomach, consider the fact that there are more than 1,400 edible insect species. Take the insect quiz for more creepy, crawly insect facts.
Insects make up what percentage of the world's animals?
40 percent
60 percent
80 percent
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Insects make up approximately 80 percent of the total number of animals on Earth.

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What are the three parts of an insect's body?
head, abdomen, tail
head, thorax, abdomen
body, wings, legs
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Insects have jointed bodies divided into three segments: the head, thorax and abdomen.

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Which of the following insects has not evolved much from its original form?
cockroach
dragonfly
dung beetle
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Fossil records show that insects existed 390 million years ago. Some of the earliest insects, such as cockroaches, have changed very little.

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Chitin helps form which part of insect anatomy?
wings
exoskeleton
antennae
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Instead of internal skeletons, insects have exoskeletons -- tough outer coverings made up of several layers. The most rigid of these layers is composed of chitin, a horny, waterproof substance.

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What do insects use their simple eyes for?
detecting colors
detecting light
magnifying images
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

The simple eyes, or ocelli, are located on the head between the compound eyes. The ocelli aren't used for vision, but to detect changes in the intensity of light.

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Of the following, which body part do insects not have in common with humans?
lungs
heart
esophagus
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Although insects breathe air, they don't have lungs. Instead, a system of branching air tubes, or tracheae, reaches all parts of the body. Air enters through openings called spiracles.

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During complete, or indirect, metamorphosis, which developmental stage follows the egg phase?
pupa
larva
nymph
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Complete, or indirect, metamorphosis follows this developmental pattern: egg, larva, pupa, adult.

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What percentage of insects are harmful to plants and animals?
2 percent
13 percent
24 percent
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

Less than 2 percent of all insect species are harmful; but among them, they can cause major crop damage and spread serious diseases.

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Which of the following is a sign that an insect is probably safe to eat?
hairy body
dull coloration
long antennae
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

A general rule of thumb is not to eat any brightly colored insect since it's nature's way of warning predators that this insect is poisonous.

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Around how many ethnic groups practice entomophagy, or bug eating?
200
1200
3000
Correct Answer
Wrong Answer

There are 1,417 species of edible insects and nearly 3,000 ethnic groups that currently practice entomophagy around the world.

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You Got:
/10
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