Fearsome Arthropods Trivia Quiz

Answer: warble

It's a tumor under the skin where a larva grows. After the grub matures it bursts through the skin and falls off. The human botfly is also called a torsalo. It lives in Mexico and Central America.

Answer: False

The distinctively pale colored, stout bodied human botfly has no piercing mouth parts and so does not bite anything. It captures mosquitoes and lays eggs on them. When the mosquito bites a person the eggs hatch and fall onto the host where they burrow under the skin. Mind you these eggs are small enough to fit a dozen on the chest of a mosquito so one probably wouldn't notice until the warble gets nice and tender.

Answer: True

The camel spider, also called a wind scorpion or solifugid, has eight legs and looks like a spider and like a scorpion but it's neither. It is a pugnacious arachnid that viciously attacks anything that comes near it with its powerful yet non-venomous bite.

Answer: False

The camel spider is not venomous. It earned its name by scavenging on dead camels. On first sight of this massive arachnid some assumed it attacked and killed the camel. It is indigenous to many desert regions of the world including the Middle East and even Texas where it is known as the wind scorpion due to its speed and agility.

Answer: bullet ant

The bullet ant's sting, though not usually deadly, is said to be the most debilitatingly painful insect sting known to man. Both names derive from the pain endured from a sting. The pain will be most severe during the first 5 hours and lessen throughout the day following a sting, hence the name 24 hour ant.

It is called a bullet ant because the intense pain is often likened to being shot. The pain is sometimes accompanied by shaking, sweating, nausea and temporary uselessness of an affected limb.

Answer: daddy long legs

There are several different animals called "daddy long legs." The brightly colored daddy long legs are more precicely called harvestmen or opilionids. They have only one body segment, don't produce silk and are not venomous though I believe they are poisonous if eaten.

They also emit an acrid odor when handled or threatened. The daddy long legs spider is usually dull colored with two body segments. The Serrasalmus may feel a little out of place here because it's a fish.

Answer: A cranefly

The "giant mosquito" you see hanging around is probably a completely harmless cranefly. According to my dictionary they are yet another insect that is sometimes called a daddy long legs.

Answer: Africanized honey bee

The sting of the Africanized honey or 'killer' bee is no more potent than that of the 'regular' or European honey bee. It's the number of stings sustained that makes them killers. Carpenter bees resemble large bumblebees and like to bore holes in your house. They are surprisingly docile and disinclined to sting. I wouldn't recommend handling them but chance encounters are not likely to result in a sting.

Answer: horsefly

The horsefly is one tough little bug. Often a swatted horsefly gets up and flies away. Tabanids aren't really meant to feed on humans, though they sometimes try. Their bite is too powerful to be discreet enough not to be noticed. It has to be powerful to get through the tough skins of the larger mammals like horses and deer that they normaly feed on.

Answer: wasp

The males cannot sting and the females cannot fly. They all look like giant furry ants.