DAILY NO. 21 · VERIFIED MEASUREMENTS
The five insects & bugs objects from the Size It Up puzzle on September 21, 2026, with the measured size of each, the reference it was compared against, a source you can check, and how the community's guesses landed. Want the surprise first? Replay this puzzle — archived days never touch your streak.
Answer: a mosquito measures 1.5 cm (length / span), which is almost exactly the same size as the reference, a honey bee at 1.5 cm.
Only the females bite; the whine is the wingbeat, hundreds of times a second.
Common miss: players tend to inflate a mosquito when it sits beside a honey bee — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: a praying mantis measures 10 cm (length / span), which is almost exactly the same size as the reference, a monarch butterfly at 10 cm.
A mantis can turn its head almost all the way round, which few insects manage.
Common miss: players tend to inflate a praying mantis when it sits beside a monarch butterfly — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: a leafcutter ant measures 1.3 cm (length / span), which is 1.3× as big as the reference, a ladybird beetle at 1 cm.
Leafcutters routinely carry many times their own body weight.
Common miss: players tend to compress a leafcutter ant when it sits beside a ladybird beetle — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: a honey bee measures 1.5 cm (length / span), which is almost exactly the same size as the reference, a mosquito at 1.5 cm.
A worker weighs about a tenth of a gram and cruises at 25 km/h.
Common miss: players tend to inflate a honey bee when it sits beside a mosquito — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Answer: a Goliath birdeater measures 28 cm (length / span), which is almost exactly the same size as the reference, an American football at 28 cm.
Its leg span can be wider than a dinner plate.
Common miss: players tend to inflate a Goliath birdeater when it sits beside an American football — big things get squeezed, small familiar things get stretched.
Sizes are measured along the axis named in each round and link to their published source. Explore the full library by category, or read how scoring works.