There are roughly ten quintillion insects alive right now. That’s a one followed by nineteen zeros. For every human being on this planet, there are about 1.4 billion insects going about their business. I’ve opened trivia nights with that number and watched entire tables silently look down at the floor beneath their chairs. It’s the perfect state of mind for what follows.
I’ve been writing and hosting insect trivia for years, and here’s what I’ve learned: people are confidently wrong about bugs in very specific, very predictable ways. Everyone thinks they know which insect is the fastest. Everyone thinks they remember how many legs a spider has (and then triumphantly announces it’s an insect, which it isn’t). The questions below are built from those moments. Some will make you feel smart. Some will make you argue with the person next to you. A few might make your skin crawl. That’s the point.
1. How many legs does an insect have?
I use this as a warm-up, and even here, someone at every event hesitates. They’re thinking about millipedes. They’re thinking about the caterpillar they saw last week. The doubt is beautiful.
2. What are the three main body segments of an insect?
This is middle school biology, but under pressure, people start inventing body parts. I’ve heard “thorax, abdomen, and… the face part” more times than I can count.
3. What insect is responsible for pollinating roughly 75% of the world’s flowering plants?
The answer feels obvious. It should. But the percentage shocks people into realizing just how dependent we are on something that weighs less than a paperclip.
4. Is a spider an insect?
I include this in every insect trivia set because someone always needs to hear it said out loud. It anchors everything that comes after.
5. What order of insects contains more species than any other order in the entire animal kingdom?
J.B.S. Haldane, the famous biologist, was once asked what his studies of creation had taught him about the Creator. His alleged reply: “An inordinate fondness for beetles.” That line alone tells you the answer.
6. What process do insects like butterflies and beetles undergo, transforming completely from larva to adult through a pupal stage?
Everyone knows this word. The trick is whether they remember the full version.
7. What common name is given to the larval stage of a butterfly?
Straightforward. But it sets up something later.
8. Which flies faster: a housefly or a honeybee?
This one splits rooms right down the middle. People who’ve been chased by bees are sure. People who’ve tried to swat flies are equally sure.
9. What insect can lift 50 times its own body weight?
Most people go straight to ant. They’re not wrong to think of ants as strong, but the real answer is more impressive.
10. How many eyes does a typical housefly have?
This is a trick question, and I love watching people wrestle with it. They can see the compound eyes. They know those are made of thousands of lenses. But the actual number of eyes?
11. What color is an insect’s blood?
People who’ve squashed enough bugs think they know. They think of the green or yellowish stuff. And they’re close, but the reasoning matters.
12. What insect has been on Earth for roughly 300 million years, predating the dinosaurs?
The disgust in the room when this answer lands is palpable. People look at cockroaches differently after this one.
13. What’s the only insect that produces food eaten by humans?
I’ve had people argue this one for ten minutes. Someone always brings up silk. Someone always brings up cochineal. But the question says food, not products.
14. How do crickets hear?
This is one of those questions where the answer makes you like the animal more. People guess antennae. People guess some kind of body vibration. Nobody guesses the truth.
15. What is the fastest flying insect on record?
Dragonfly fans, this is your moment. Or is it?
16. Are fireflies actually flies?
Simple question. Surprising number of wrong answers.
17. What percentage of all known animal species are insects?
People guess high. They don’t guess high enough.
18. Do all mosquitoes bite humans?
This is the one that makes people angry at the wrong mosquitoes.
19. What insect can survive being frozen solid and then thaw back to life?
There are a few correct answers here, but one is the crowd favorite.
20. What insect’s wings beat approximately 200 times per second?
People tend to overshoot the number, which is fun. But the species catches them off guard too.
21. What common garden insect is actually a beetle, not a bug, despite having “bug” in its name?
The naming conventions of insects are a trivia goldmine. People have been lying to themselves about this one since childhood.
22. What is the study of insects called?
A vocabulary question that sorts the room. You either know it or you’re guessing something that sounds Latin enough.
23. In what stage of its life does a mayfly not have a functioning mouth?
The answer to this one tends to make people philosophical.
24. What insect navigates using the Milky Way?
This is the question that makes people put their drinks down.
25. What do you call a group of locusts?
People try “swarm.” They’re not wrong, exactly, but there’s a more specific and biblical term.
26. What insect can turn its head nearly 180 degrees?
Most people get this one. It’s the only insect that can do it, and that fact alone is unsettling.
27. How many times can a flea jump in succession without stopping?
People guess in the hundreds. The truth is more exhausting than that.
28. What insect builds structures out of paper it manufactures itself?
The word “manufactures” is doing work here. People know the answer but they’ve never thought of it this way.
29. What color are most insect eggs?
Nobody thinks about insect eggs until you ask. Then they realize they have no idea.
30. What insect’s larvae are known as “wigglers”?
This one’s all about whether you’ve ever looked closely at standing water and wished you hadn’t.
31. What common household insect can live for up to a week without its head?
Everyone knows this fact. Hardly anyone can explain why.
32. What insect produces a substance called royal jelly?
People who’ve seen it in health food stores know this. People who haven’t are about to learn something strange.
33. What is the loudest insect in the world relative to its body size?
Cicada people are leaning forward. They should be.
34. Approximately how many species of ants have been identified worldwide?
People underestimate this. They always underestimate this.
35. What do monarch butterflies eat during their migration?
A trick embedded in a straightforward question. People know monarchs migrate. They don’t think about what fuels the trip.
36. What disease, transmitted by mosquitoes, kills more humans than any other insect-borne illness?
This is the question that reminds the room why insect trivia isn’t just about pretty wings and party facts.
37. What insect spreads Chagas disease?
This one separates the casual from the committed. Most people have never heard of the disease, let alone the vector.
38. What insect was responsible for spreading the bubonic plague?
People say rats. Rats get all the blame. But rats were just the taxi.
39. What parasitic insect lives exclusively in human hair and feeds on blood from the scalp?
Every parent in the room just scratched their head.
40. What insect order does the bedbug belong to?
This is a hard one for non-specialists, but the answer has a satisfying logic to it.
41. What invasive insect, first detected in the U.S. in Pennsylvania in 2014, is known for swarming on trees and destroying vineyards?
If you live on the East Coast, you know this one in your bones. If you don’t, you’re about to learn about a very pretty pest.
42. What tiny insect, often found in flour and grain products, is one of the most common pantry pests worldwide?
Anyone who’s ever opened an old bag of flour and seen movement knows this answer viscerally.
43. What insect has a queen, workers, and soldiers, and builds mounds that can reach over 17 feet tall?
Two answers feel right here. Only one builds the skyscrapers.
44. What insect can carry up to 50 times its own body weight while walking?
Different from the earlier lifting question. This is about sustained carry, not pushing.
45. What role does a drone play in a honeybee colony?
People assume drones are workers. The truth is both simpler and sadder.
46. What is the term for insects that go through egg, nymph, and adult stages without a pupal phase?
We set this up earlier. Now it pays off.
47. What species of ant is known for enslaving ants from other colonies?
Nature doesn’t care about your feelings. This question proves it.
48. What do army ants use to build bridges and shelters out of?
The answer to this one makes people lean back in their chairs.
49. What insect gets its name from the religious posture of its front legs?
Everybody’s got this one. But I include it because it always gets a smile.
50. What butterfly shares its name with a type of royal authority?
The clue is in the crown.
51. What insect’s name literally means “hundred feet,” even though no species actually has exactly 100?
Careful. This is a trap.
52. What bioluminescent insect uses its light primarily to attract mates?
Summer nostalgia in a question. Everyone has a memory attached to this answer.
53. What insect, found in Africa and South America, is the primary vector for sleeping sickness?
A hard one. But the name is distinctive enough that it often triggers recognition.
54. What beetle, sacred to the ancient Egyptians, rolls balls of dung across the ground?
The Egyptians associated it with the sun god Ra. They saw a beetle rolling a ball of dung and thought of the sun being pushed across the sky. I love humanity sometimes.
55. What is the approximate lifespan of a worker honeybee during summer?
People guess years. The answer is a gut punch.
56. How far can a monarch butterfly migrate in a single generation?
The distance isn’t what gets people. It’s the fact that the butterfly that arrives is not the one that left.
57. What is the smallest known insect in the world?
Nobody gets this. It’s a flex question. You include it so people can learn something genuinely new.
58. How many flowers must honeybees visit to produce one pound of honey?
Go ahead and guess. Whatever number you’re thinking, multiply it.
59. What insect holds the record for the longest migration of any insect species, traveling over 4,400 miles across the Indian Ocean?
Not the monarch. That’s what everyone writes down. This is the question that humbles the person who’s been getting everything right.
60. Inside a chrysalis, a caterpillar doesn’t simply grow wings. What actually happens to most of its body?
I save this question for last because it changes the way people think about transformation. Not just insect transformation. All of it. When a caterpillar enters its chrysalis, it doesn’t just sprout wings and rearrange some legs. It dissolves. Nearly its entire body breaks down into a kind of cellular soup. Then, from clusters of cells called imaginal discs that were present since it was a larva, the butterfly rebuilds itself from almost nothing. Same DNA. Completely new architecture. And here’s the part that haunts me: researchers have shown that moths can retain memories from their caterpillar stage. Something survives the dissolution. Something remembers what it was before it became what it is. I’ve ended a lot of nights on that question, and the room never stays loud after the answer. People just sit with it for a second. That’s all you can ask of a good question.
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