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Animals & Wildlife
Creatures & Their Records
The biggest, the fastest and the genuinely strange.
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Which vertebrate is believed to have the longest lifespan?
Insects and Invertebrates
Vertebrates get the documentaries, but they are a rounding error in the count of animal species. This quiz belongs to everything else.
About this topic
Invertebrate is not a real biological group so much as a leftover category: every animal that is not a fish, amphibian, reptile, bird or mammal. That leftover contains the overwhelming majority of animal species on earth, and most of the interesting body plans. A fair number of the questions here turn on classification, because the everyday names mislead. A woodlouse is not an insect. A coral is not a plant. A spider is not a bug in the strict sense. Getting those boundaries right is most of what it takes to understand the group.
Questions & answers
Insects and Invertebrates: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1Which of these is not an insect?
- A Grasshopper
- B Spider Correct
- C Beetle
- D Ant
Answer: B. Spider
Why: Spiders are arachnids: eight legs, two body sections, no antennae and no wings. Insects have six legs, three body sections and a pair of antennae.
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2Which group contains the most described animal species?
- A Beetles Correct
- B Butterflies and moths
- C Spiders
- D Bees, wasps and ants
Answer: A. Beetles
Why: Roughly one in four described animal species is a beetle, with something like 400,000 named so far. The geneticist J. B. S. Haldane is supposed to have said that a creator would show an inordinate fondness for them.
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3Which insect hatches as a nymph rather than a larva, with no pupal stage?
- A Butterfly
- B Housefly
- C Mosquito
- D Grasshopper Correct
Answer: D. Grasshopper
Why: Grasshoppers hatch looking like small wingless adults and moult their way up to full size. Butterflies, flies and mosquitoes all pass through a pupa in which the body is substantially rebuilt.
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4Spider silk is made of what?
- A Chitin
- B Keratin
- C Protein Correct
- D Cellulose
Answer: C. Protein
Why: Silk is a protein, spun as a liquid from glands in the abdomen and hardened as it is drawn out. A single orb-weaver makes several different silks, using a stiff one for the spokes and a stretchy, sticky one for the spiral that catches prey.
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5Why is an octopus's blood blue?
- A It takes its colour from the animal's diet
- B It carries oxygen using copper-based haemocyanin Correct
- C It carries oxygen using iron-based haemoglobin
- D It carries no oxygen at all
Answer: B. It carries oxygen using copper-based haemocyanin
Why: Haemocyanin turns blue when it picks up oxygen, in the way that haemoglobin turns red. Copper-based blood works better than ours in cold water with little dissolved oxygen, which suits most octopus habitats.
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6Which of these is a crustacean rather than an insect or myriapod?
- A Woodlouse Correct
- B Centipede
- C Millipede
- D Earwig
Answer: A. Woodlouse
Why: Woodlice are land-living crustaceans, closer to crabs and lobsters than to anything with six legs. They still breathe through gill-like structures, which is why they die in dry air and stay under damp wood.
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7A coral reef is built by what?
- A Colonies of algae
- B Compacted shell and sand
- C Hardened sponges
- D Colonies of small animals related to jellyfish Correct
Answer: D. Colonies of small animals related to jellyfish
Why: Coral polyps are cnidarians, in the same phylum as anemones and jellyfish, and they build stony skeletons of calcium carbonate. Most reef-building species also house algae in their tissues, which supply a large share of their food.
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8How many pairs of legs does a millipede have on most body segments?
- A Three
- B Four
- C Two Correct
- D One
Answer: C. Two
Why: Two pairs per segment for millipedes, one pair per segment for centipedes, which is the quickest way to tell them apart. Despite the name, common millipedes have well under a hundred pairs.
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9Roughly what share of described animal species are invertebrates?
- A About 30 per cent
- B About 95 per cent Correct
- C About 70 per cent
- D About 50 per cent
Answer: B. About 95 per cent
Why: Animals with backbones make up only a few per cent of the described total. Insects alone outnumber all vertebrate species many times over.
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10What does a butterfly use its proboscis for?
- A Drinking nectar and other liquids Correct
- B Chewing leaves
- C Detecting scent
- D Spinning silk
Answer: A. Drinking nectar and other liquids
Why: The proboscis is a coiled tube that works as a drinking straw and uncoils when the butterfly feeds. Butterflies taste with sensors on their feet, which is how a female checks a leaf before laying eggs on it.
Frequently asked questions about Insects and Invertebrates
How many questions are in Insects and Invertebrates?
Insects and Invertebrates has 10 questions and takes about 7 minutes to finish. It is rated Medium and sits in our Animals & Wildlife category.
How is Insects and Invertebrates scored?
Each of the 10 correct answers adds 10 XP, up to 100 XP for a clean run. Wrong answers cost you nothing, and your full question-by-question review is shown at the end.
Are the answers to Insects and Invertebrates explained?
Yes. All 10 questions carry a written explanation of why the correct answer is right, so the quiz works as a study sheet as well as a test.
Can I replay Insects and Invertebrates?
Yes, as often as you like. The questions and the answer options are reshuffled on each run, and you can use Practice Mistakes afterwards to retry only the ones you missed. No account is needed to play.
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