Velvet Worm Quiz: Slime Cannons of the Forest Floor

This velvet worm quiz crawls through leaf litter with an animal that hunts using glue. Play 10 interactive questions on soft velvety skin, stubby legs, shooting slime from glands beside the mouth, slime that hardens around prey, eating the slime again to save energy, tropical and southern forests, the need for humidity, live births and Cambrian relatives.

Start Velvet Worm Quiz

🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Skin
What is velvet worm skin like?
Legs
What kind of legs do they have?
Slime
How do velvet worms catch prey?
Harden
What happens to the slime on prey?
Recycle
What do velvet worms do with their slime?
Home
Where do velvet worms live?
Dry
Why do they avoid dry air?
Young
How do many species produce young?
Ancient
How old is their lineage?
Prey
What do velvet worms eat?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: What is velvet worm skin like?
Answer: Soft and velvety
Tiny bumps give the texture.
Q2: What kind of legs do they have?
Answer: Many stubby legs
They walk slowly.
Q3: How do velvet worms catch prey?
Answer: By shooting sticky slime
Slime sprays from near the mouth.
Q4: What happens to the slime on prey?
Answer: It hardens and traps it
Prey cannot escape.
Q5: What do velvet worms do with their slime?
Answer: Eat it again
Making slime costs energy.
Q6: Where do velvet worms live?
Answer: Damp tropical and southern forests
They need humidity.
Q7: Why do they avoid dry air?
Answer: They lose water easily
Their breathing tubes stay open.
Q8: How do many species produce young?
Answer: Live birth
Some still lay eggs.
Q9: How old is their lineage?
Answer: Relatives date back to the Cambrian
They are called living fossils.
Q10: What do velvet worms eat?
Answer: Insects and other small creatures
They are predators.

Hunters That Shoot Glue

Velvet worms are soft-bodied animals with velvety skin and many stubby legs. They live in damp tropical and southern forests, under logs and leaf litter, because they lose water easily and need humid air. Their relatives date back to the Cambrian, so they are sometimes called living fossils.

Velvet worms are predators of insects and other small creatures. They shoot sticky slime from glands beside the mouth, spraying it in a zigzag stream. The slime hardens around the prey, trapping it, and the velvet worm then bites and eats it.

Making slime costs a lot of energy, so velvet worms eat the leftover slime to recycle it. Many species give birth to live young, while some still lay eggs. Scientists study their slime to learn how a liquid can quickly turn into strong fibers.

What This Quiz Teaches

Nature fans will enjoy these questions.

What velvet worms look like
How they hunt
Why they need humidity
How they reproduce
How old their lineage is

Did You Know?

There are about 200 species.
They hunt mostly at night.
Some live in groups.
Their eyes are simple.
They are neither worms nor insects.