Weevils and Woodlice and Whelks, Oh My! Quiz

Answer: Crane fly

A crane fly, sometimes called a Daddy-long-legs or a Tommy-spinner in the UK, is a flying insect, not a beetle.
Weevils are almost always very small, around one quarter of an inch long, and many species are pests, both in the house and on farmer's crops.

Answer: Boll

These weevils are commonly known as boll weevils, and they can cause millions of dollars worth of damage to cotton crops if they infest them. In the 1920s the boll weevil wiped out many farmers' crops and left many people very poor and hungry.

Answer: True

Almost all known species of weevils are herbivorous. This means they eat plants and vegetation, and not meat. There is however, one species, called fungus weevils, with the scientific name anthribidae, who have been known to eat a tiny parasitic insect called 'soft scales'.

Answer: Crustaceans

Most crustaceans are aquatic, which means they live in water, but woodlice are one of the few species of crustacean that live on land. Molluscs are things like snails and octopi. Arachnids are spiders, and coleoptera are beetles.

Answer: They have lung-like organs

Woodlice actually have lung-like organs that they use to breathe. The special 'proper' name for these is pleopodal lungs.
Woodlice need a damp environment to live in. Although woodlice are not considered a pest as such, and do not carry disease or destroy things like, say, termites can, if they are in your house or outbuildings, it can mean that there is a problem with dampness.

Answer: In a sort of pouch under her abdomen, a bit like a kangaroo's

The mother woodlouse's pouch is called a marsupium, indicating it is similar to the marsupial's pouch that, say, a mother kangaroo has. She carries her eggs in her pouch until they hatch, and then the tiny white baby woodlice creep out. As they grow, they change colour to match the adults, and moult, or shed their outer exoskeleton "shell" as it gets too small.

This can happen several times until the louse is fully grown. Woodlice shed their exoskeleton in two pieces, with the back coming off first, followed by the front half.

This is unusual, as most crustaceans lose the whole thing in one piece.

Answer: Sea snail

It is most likely that the actual word whelk is of Dutch origin. All around the world, different species of sea snails are described as whelks, and most of them can be eaten by people.
Veined rapa whelks, which have spread, and are now found as far afield as the Black Sea and the United States, eat other shellfish, and can do a lot of damage to commercial shellfish beds, especially oysters.

Answer: Crown of thorns starfish

Giant tritons can grow to be half a metre long, and easily subdue and eat crown of thorns starfish when they catch them. These starfish are poisonous, and eat live coral, doing untold damage to reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef.
Humphead wrasse are one of the few other creatures which have been seen to prey on crown of thorns starfish.
Unlike many other species of snails, tritons are either male or female, and not hermaphrodite (both male and female in one creature).

Answer: Feeding

The radula is the equivalent to the tongue of the whelk. It is shaped like a ribbon, and has teeth along the edges. The exact appearance of the radula and/or teeth depends on the species. Both carnivorous (meat eating) and herbivorous (plant eating) gastropods (snails and slugs, both marine and land species) have them.

Answer: Georgia

Georgia was the fourth State to join the Union, in 1788. It was one of the thirteen original colonies, and also one of the Confederate States. It seceded from, and returned to the Union, during and after the Civil War.
The knobbed whelk is one of the largest species of sea snail, and can grow up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) in length! They can be found all along the Atlantic coast of the US, from Massachusetts in the north to Florida in the south.
The other State to have the knobbed whelk as the State shellfish is New Jersey. Both of those two States have a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, where the knobbed whelk can be found.
Other "State whelks" include Texas, which has the prickly whelk, and Massachusetts which has the wrinkled whelk.