Pest Identification Quiz

The first step in every integrated pest management strategy is to inspect and identify the target pest. Most people distinguish between ants, cockroaches, mosquitoes and other pests, but lack a basic knowledge of their characteristics. It happens a lot that people are bitten or stung in their homes or yards, sometimes over period of months, without knowing the cause or reason of the nuisance. Without an accurate identification, no proper treatment can be done, the pest population increases and so does the suffering and sometimes the embarrassment of the residents. In order to help in those cases, we developed a 'What bites you?' quiz. It comprises 10 multiple choice questions that integrate data regarding the pest (behavior, color, size, etc…), the
location, times, forms in which the people feel the nuisance. Seven common Israeli pests (fleas, little fire ants, bed bugs, Culex mosquitoes, asian tiger mosquitoes, mites and sand flies) were matched to each tested parameter by evaluating the matching relationships (unrelated/ neutral/ highly related).