Outlandish Insect Wing Trivia Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cut into

Both the "entom" of entomology and the "sect" of insect make reference to the divided or "cut up" bodies of insects. The "CT" of CT scans is an abbreviation for "computed tomography", a "tomogram" being a radiograph that presents a slice of the part being x-rayed. The "sect" of insect carries the sense of "cut" into such words as "transect", "vivisect" and even "intersect".

Answer: The Beatles

Buddy Holly and the Crickets were the inspiration for the Beatles' name according to Tom Turpin, Professor of Entomology at Purdue University. In his article "On Six Legs", according to Turpin, "The Beatles based their name on the 'beat' music they were playing, and the most common type of animal on Earth--beetles.

They wanted an insect name because they admired the U.S. group known as Buddy Holly and the Crickets." In his article, Turpin references names as odd and obscure as Insect Opera, Locust Fudge and Atomic Flea. Can it be any coincidence that Sir Paul sprouted Wings? (And yes, the author's burning desire to include the last sentence was the whole reason for adding this question.)

Answer: Only two

The literary world was forced to wait until the 1948 publication of David Miller's paper "Shakespearian Entomology" in "Tuatara", the journal of New Zealand's prestigious "Biological Society", in order to have the definitive work on this topic. One can only wonder at the dedication of an author willing to ascertain that insects play a role in every Shakespearian play apart from "The Tragedy of King Richard III" and "Pericles", without the use of computerized word searches. One can easily understand why David Miller was forced to confess in his paper that "his (Shakespeare's) poems were not searched; that the subject is exhausted is not pretended."

Answer: The work itself does not mention wings

Actually, the matter of Gregor Samsa's having wings has attracted little attention. Although the issue is dealt with in Vladimir Nabokov's "Lecture on 'The Metamorphosis'", this quiz's author finds it difficult to believe that even insects could be made to care about this matter.

However, Nabokov argues for Samsa having wings about which Samsa was unaware, and counts this as an insight so significant that he felt readers should treasure it for their entire lives. Are you wondering whether this Nabokov was the author of the notorious novel "Lolita"? In fact, he is. Before becoming a famous (or infamous) author and a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University, Nabokov was a zoology research fellow at Harvard. Now that's what I call trivia!

Answer: Flies are the only insects with two wings

Only six in the first 100 people to play this quiz answered this question correctly. I feel so ashamed... or was that perversely proud. I don't remember, and I'm sticking with that story. But really, it wouldn't be fair to change the question now, would it?

A bug can belong to the order of insects (Diptera) yet not fly. But unlike any other order of insects, flies have two wings - all other winged insects have four. Two of the fly's wings have been turned into "halteres", organs used for balance.

Answer: Bumblebee

Rimsky-Korsakov's famous "Flight of the Bumblebee" is an interlude in the opera "Tsar Saltan". In "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" from which the opera is taken, the Tsar's wife and his son Gvidon are banished through the trickery of the evil Barbarika. With the help of an enchanted swan, Gvidon is turned into three different insects all of which have an opportunity to sting the wicked Barbarika: a gnat, a fly and a bumblebee.

Answer: Anti-gravity

Considering that the biomass of insects exceeds that of any other category of animal and that most of this mass may be airborne at any moment in time, it is unsurprising that considerable effort has not been made to understand the physics of this phenomenon - some strictly scientific and some scientifically imaginative. To understand the weighty matter of the physics involved in the flight of nature's fatter insects, one could read "Scientific American's" "Solving the Mystery of Insect Flight" in which Michael Dickson explains how "insects use a combination of aerodynamic effects to remain aloft". Alternatively, one could examine Victor Grebennikov's more inventive theories.

The Russian professor holds that not only is natural anti-gravitation involved in getting an ungainly bug airborne, but that this process involves invisibility.

His theories have been posthumously explained by Juri N. Cherednichenko of the Laboratory of biophysics Scientific Research Institute of General Pathology and Human Ecology.

Answer: Godzilla (1954 version)

Flight is such an important ability for insect movie monsters that the giant ants in "Them" sprouted wings. Mothra was a moth/butterfly and "The Beginning of the End" featured giant grasshoppers.

Answer: Yes

Phasmids, the stick insects that rely on their sticklike appearance for camouflage, were originally flying insects according to fossil evidence. However, fossil evidence also indicates that these wings were evolutionarily lost and then evolutionarily regained.

Answer: Yes

Fossil evidence indicates that in very prehistoric times, fleas could fly (or at least had wings). In fact, the very elastic tissue that allows necessary flexibility for insect wings seems to have evolved into the very elastic structure that powers a flea's jump.