How fast do a mosquito's wings beat, and what is a tumbler? These mosquito trivia questions fill five rounds on the insect itself: its body, its young in the water and its kinds.
Read the full guide
Five rounds, from culex to the comma-shaped pupa
Names and family tree finds a Latin gnat and a mosquito in Alberta amber. Body, wings and mouthparts counts the stylets in a proboscis. Eggs, larvae and pupae floats a raft, breathes through a siphon and tumbles. Feeding, flight and seasons clocks an Anopheles at walking pace. Anopheles, Culex and other kinds tells them apart by how they sit.
For a science club or a screened porch
Four choices come with each question; the one you press is marked right or wrong, and a reason and an article follow. Every tenth question closes a set. Scored round runs to twenty with the marking saved for last.
Questions and answers
Do all mosquitoes bite?
No. Males and females both drink nectar, plant juices and the honeydew of aphids. Males take nothing else; in many species the females also take blood, mainly to obtain proteins for egg production.
How long do mosquitoes live?
An adult lives anywhere from a week to about a month, depending on the species. Some pass the winter as adults in diapause.
Where do mosquitoes lay their eggs?
Most lay them in still water: a pond, a marsh, a puddle that will dry up, a tree hole that has filled with water, or the pool held between the leaves of a bromeliad.
How were the answers checked?
Each was read on October 3, 2026 in the English Wikipedia articles Mosquito, Anopheles or Culex; every question links its own. Illness figures, bite treatments, repellents and control methods are left out, and nothing here is health advice.
By which common name are Anopheles mosquitoes known?Answer: Marsh mosquitoes. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
The family name comes from the Latin word culex. What does culex mean?Answer: Midge or gnat. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
The fossil mosquito Paleoculicis minutus was found in amber from which Canadian province?Answer: Alberta. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
The genus name Anopheles comes from an Ancient Greek word with which meaning?Answer: Useless. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
In which material have mosquitoes of the Cretaceous been found preserved?Answer: Amber. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Mosquitoes are traditionally divided into two subfamilies, the Anophelinae and which other?Answer: The Culicinae. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Mosquitoes are true flies. Which order is that?Answer: Diptera. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What do biologists call small animals, such as mosquitoes, that feed on larger animals without killing them at once?Answer: Micropredators. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Which English entomologist published a five-volume monograph on the mosquitoes in 1901?Answer: Frederick Vincent Theobald. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Which family do the mosquitoes make up?Answer: Culicidae. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Which German entomologist introduced the family name of the mosquitoes?Answer: Johann Wilhelm Meigen. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Who described parasites as predators that eat prey in units of less than one?Answer: Edward O. Wilson. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Who named the genus Culex, using the Latin word for a gnat?Answer: Carl Linnaeus. Source: Wikipedia: Culex
Body, wings and mouthparts 12
At rest, how does a mosquito hold its first pair of legs, unlike a midge?Answer: Outward. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
By sight, mosquitoes have a strong attraction to which kind of object?Answer: Dark, high-contrast ones. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
How fast do male mosquitoes beat their wings?Answer: Between 450 and 600 times a second. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
How many piercing stylets are bundled inside a mosquito's proboscis?Answer: Six. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
How many wings does a mosquito have?Answer: One pair. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
In flies such as mosquitoes, the second pair of wings has shrunk into tiny organs called what?Answer: Halteres. Source: Wikipedia: Culex
Mosquitoes of the genus Toxorhynchites, the largest of all, never do what?Answer: Take blood. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Of the 72 types of odor receptor on a mosquito's antennae, at least 27 detect chemicals found in what?Answer: Perspiration. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Receptors on a mosquito's palps detect which gas, a major cue that leads it to a host?Answer: Carbon dioxide. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
What covers the surface of a mosquito's wings?Answer: Scales. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What does the labium, the sheath of the proboscis, do when a mosquito begins to bite?Answer: It bends back into a bow. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What is the long, piercing and sucking set of mouthparts of a mosquito called?Answer: The proboscis. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Eggs, larvae and pupae 14
Aedes mosquitoes drop their eggs on damp mud near water. When do the eggs hatch?Answer: Only when they are flooded. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
How do Culex mosquitoes lay their eggs?Answer: In floating rafts. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
How many stages are there in the life of a mosquito?Answer: Four. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
In hot weather, how quickly can a mosquito develop from egg to adult?Answer: In as few as five days. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Through what does a mosquito pupa breathe?Answer: A pair of respiratory trumpets. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Through what does a typical mosquito larva breathe at the water surface?Answer: A siphon on its abdomen. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What do the eggs of Anopheles have along their sides?Answer: Floats. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What does a mosquito larva use to feed?Answer: Mouth brushes. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What does a mosquito pupa eat?Answer: Nothing at all. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What is a mosquito pupa also known as?Answer: A tumbler. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What shape is a mosquito pupa when seen from the side?Answer: Like a comma. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
Where are the eggs of most mosquitoes laid?Answer: In stagnant water. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Where do Mansonia mosquitoes usually attach their eggs?Answer: Under water lily pads. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Where does the mosquito Wyeomyia smithii breed?Answer: In the pitchers of pitcher plants. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Feeding, flight and seasons 10
Ancient Greek fables set the mosquito beside an elephant and a bull. From which region do they ultimately derive?Answer: Mesopotamia. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
For how long each year may Arctic mosquitoes be active?Answer: Only a few weeks. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
How fast does an Anopheles mosquito fly?Answer: 1 to 2 km/h (about 1 mph). Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Mosquitoes occur in every land region except a few islands and which continent?Answer: Antarctica. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
What is the main thing a mosquito gets from a meal of blood?Answer: Proteins for making eggs. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
When do most mosquito species feed?Answer: At dawn or dusk. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
When is the Asian tiger mosquito known to fly and feed?Answer: In the daytime. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Where do adults of some mosquito species shelter to survive the winter?Answer: In buildings or hollow trees. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Which flowers are a specialized case of pollination by mosquitoes?Answer: Platanthera orchids. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Which of these insects catch adult mosquitoes in flight?Answer: Dragonflies. Source: Wikipedia: Mosquito
Anopheles, Culex and other kinds 13
About how long do male Anopheles live?Answer: About a week. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
An Anopheles feeds head down. How does a culicine female hold her body?Answer: Horizontal. Source: Wikipedia: Culex
Anopheles shares its subfamily with two other genera. Where is one of them, Bironella, found?Answer: Australasia. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
Evarcha culicivora picks out Anopheles mosquitoes as prey. What kind of animal is it?Answer: A jumping spider. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
Fossil Anopheles are rare. One was found in amber from which Caribbean country?Answer: The Dominican Republic. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
How do Anopheles mosquitoes sometimes travel hundreds of kilometers?Answer: Blown by the wind. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
How does a resting Anopheles mosquito hold its body?Answer: With its abdomen pointing up. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
How does an Anopheles larva lie at the water surface?Answer: Parallel to it. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
What do adult Anopheles do to last through hot, dry seasons such as that of the Sahel?Answer: They become dormant. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
What holds a batch of Culex eggs together on the water?Answer: Adhesion forces alone. Source: Wikipedia: Culex
Which feature of the head sets an Anopheles apart from other mosquitoes?Answer: Palps as long as the proboscis. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
Which is the only genus of mosquito that carries human malaria?Answer: Anopheles. Source: Wikipedia: Anopheles
The wings of culicine mosquitoes tend to be clear. How do those of anophelines tend to look?Answer: Dappled or spotted. Source: Wikipedia: Culex
How this list was compiled
Written for this site; nothing was copied from another list. Questions and wrong choices are our own. Each explanation restates, in our own sentences, a fact from the English Wikipedia article named and linked beside the question (https://en.wikipedia.org, text under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license): Mosquito, Anopheles and Culex. On October 3, 2026 the passage that states each fact was read in its article before the question was kept. Left out on purpose: counts of species, illness and death figures, the lists of diseases, the treatment of bites, repellents, control and eradication methods, who gets bitten more, mating, and the origin stories of living peoples. One row names malaria as a fact of school science; nothing here is health advice. Levels are our estimate: easy is fair for any table, medium suits people who know the animal, hard will stump most tables. Unofficial, and not advice on keeping, feeding or approaching an animal. Licence: own work