UC Mosquito Research Program: How Much Do You Know About Mosquitoes?

1. How long have mosquitoes existed?
a. About 10,000 years
b. About 10 million years
c. At least 210 million years
d. Way too long, thank you.

2. How many different mosquito species are found worldwide?
a. About 10,000
b. About 2,600
c. Less than 1,000
d. None, if the SWAT team finds them first.

3. Which mosquitoes are found on all continents except Antarctica?
a. Culex pipiens complex, a household mosquito.
b. Anopheles gambiae, a mosquito that transmits malaria.
c. Culex tarsalis, a mosquito that transmits West Nile.
d. Continent? Isn’t Antarctica a country instead of a continent?

4. Why do mosquitoes bite?
a. They’re mean-spirited and vindictive.
b. To give the males energy--the Red Bull effect.
c. Primarily, because the females need a blood meal to develop their eggs.
d. So they can sing the Carly Simon hit, “You’re So Vein”

5. Some male mosquitoes have been known to suck blood, although they have no use for blood. What are these called?
a. Gynandromorphs
b. Andromorphs
c. Alpha males
d. Blood brothers; they’re in the Mosquito Mafia.

6. What of the following is NOT a mosquito-borne disease?
a. Lyme disease
b. Yellow fever
c. Malaria
d. Dengue

7. When can a newly emerged mosquito first mate?
a. When there’s soft music playing in the background
b. Two days old
c. A week old
d. A month old

8. How fast can a Culex female beat her wings?
a. 50 to 100 times per second.
b. 100 to 150 times per second.
c. 250 to 500 times per second.
d. Faster than you can beat a path to the door.

9. How long can the average mosquito live?
a. Not long, if someone gets slap-happy.
b. About one month.
c. About one week.
d. About 48 days.

10. What was the name of the man who first saw malaria parasites in the blood of an infected person?
a. Ronald Ross
b. Ronald Laveran
c. Charles Laveran
d. It wasn’t a man; it was Laverne Ross.

11. What physician connected mosquitoes to malaria?
a. It wasn’t a physician; it was Nurse Sumatra “Sunny” Woodworth.
b. Claudio Meneses
c. William C. Reeves
d. Ronald Ross

12. Who first described the four distinct stages in its life cycle: egg, larva, pupa and adult?
a. Plato
b. Socrates
c. Aristotle
d. Nancy Dullum

13. What country was using quinine-based medicine in the 1600s?
a. Mexico
b. Tanzania
c. Spain
d. Peru

14. How many legs does a mosquito have?
a. Four
b. Eight
c. Six
d. Two, same as us.

15. How does a female mosquito identify its victims?
a. By their perfume
b. Sight, smell and warmth
c. By smell and warmth; she can’t see
d. She reads their name tags

16. The mosquito has four distinct stages: egg, pupae, larvae and adult. What are the larvae called?
a. Bottom feeders
b. Tumblers
c. Wrigglers or wigglers
d. Proboscis partners

17. What phylum does the mosquito belong to?
a. Arthropoda
b. Insecta
c. Mosqueeta
d. Diptera

18. What important person died of malaria in 323 B. C.?
a. Genghis Khan
b. Alexander the Great
c. Pope Gregory the Great
d. Who knows? They didn’t keep records then.

19. Mosquitoes comprise what percent of a bat’s diet?
a. 10 percent
b. Less than 5 percent
c. Less than 1 percent
d. Not nearly enough 20.

20. The larvae of Anopheles gambiae have no:
a. Breathing or air tube
b. Filtering mouthparts
c. Antennae
d. Eyes

21. What’s the UC Davis connection for Anopheles freeborni?
a. It was discovered by Andrew Albert Anopheles, former UC Davis chancellor.
b. It’s linked to Freeborn Hall, which was named for a UC Davis entomologist
c. It was named for Stanley B. Freeborn, former UC Davis chancellor.
d. Both b and c

22. If you were a Uranotaenia mosquito, which host would you prefer for a blood meal?
a. Mammal
b. Bird
c. Something out of the toad tunnel at UC Davis
d. Human

23. What’s another word for mosquito?
a. Skeeter
b. Little Fly
c. Mossie or Mozzie
d. All of the above
e. None; you can’t say that word on a family Web site.

24. West Nile Virus was first discovered in
a. New York City in 1999
b. Uganda in 1937
c. Rwanda in 1920
d. California in 1650

25. In California, there’s at least one genus active every month of the year. Which one is active in the winter?
a. Aedes
b. Uranotaenia
c. Culiseta
d. Calcutta

See answers
See feature story on 'Mosquito Man' Greg Lanzaro
See slide show on malaria research in Africa