Parts of an Insect Worksheet

Creepy, crawly, and cool! Insects are amazing, and you’ll want these parts of an insect worksheet to start off your study of insects. Then crawl over and check out more Free Insect Worksheets for Kids!

With the warm weather outside, this is the perfect time to get into bugs. Even if your child is a bit timid when it comes to bugs, educating them about bugs might help them hop right over that worry and fear. We use these to get accustomed to bugs and I think that it really does help!

Be certain to check out our Bug Counting Mats as well!

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Parts of an Insect Worksheet

Use these worksheets as a simple way to held your child identify bug parts and learn more about them.

The basic parts of an insect

Insect bodies all have some things in common, and then they have some things specific to their genus or family.

All insects, for example, have 6 legs and antenna, and a body divided in 3. But some kinds of insects have wings and some have shells. Some have more prominent proboscis (sucking mouths), some have more prominent mandibles (biting mouths), and some have just labium (sponging mouths).

Every insect has 3 main body parts — the head, the thorax and the abdomen.

The head of the insect is where the antenna, the compound eyes and the external mouth parts are. Mosquitos will have proboscis, beetles generally have mandibles, and houseflies have labium, as an example.

The thorax is the middle part of the insect, and it’s where the legs (and wings, if there are any) attach. All true insects have 6 legs – 3 on each side of the body. Some insects may have just 2 wings, and some may have 4.

The abdomen is the end part of the insect, and usually the largest and most recognizable. This is where the insect’s internal organs are usually contained, such as their digestive system or reproductive organs. The abdomen is reactive, and it will expand as the insect feeds.

Located either on the thorax or the abdomen are the spiracles, the breathing holes of the insect. And all true insects have exoskeletons, or skeletal systems on the outside of their bodies, made of chitin, a kind of biological plastic.