Bugs & Insects Facts for Kids
Creepy-crawly facts about insects and bugs
Crickets make their chirping sound by stridulation — rubbing the ridged edge of one wing against a scraper on the other wing, not by rubbing their legs together as commonly believed.
Inchworms are not worms — they are caterpillars of geometrid moths that move by drawing their back legs up to their front legs, creating a loop shape, then stretching forward again.
It is not just adult fireflies that glow — their larvae and even their eggs produce light. Scientists think glowing larvae use their light to warn predators that they taste terrible.
A forager bee points her waggle run in the direction of flowers relative to the sun — if she runs straight up the comb, the food is directly toward the sun; downward means directly away.
Spiders are born knowing how to spin their webs — no parent teaches them. The design is completely instinctive, encoded in their genes.
Despite being over 300 million years old as a lineage, dragonflies look remarkably similar to their fossilised ancestors — their design has barely needed to change because it works so well.
Dung beetles roll balls of animal dung and bury them as food stores — females lay an egg inside each ball, and the larvae hatch into a ready-made meal.
Monarch butterflies are toxic to birds because their caterpillars eat milkweed and store the plant's toxins in their bodies — birds that eat them become ill and quickly learn to avoid them.
Scientists discovered that mealworm beetle larvae can eat and digest expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam), breaking it down in their gut microbiome — potentially opening new ways to recycle plastic.
The colour of some butterfly wing patterns is determined by temperature during their pupal stage — cooler temperatures during development produce darker wings, which absorb more heat.