Bug Coloring Pages

• Ladybug: a small beetle that eats aphids, so gardeners are happy to see it
• Butterfly: tastes with its feet and starts life as a caterpillar
• Dragonfly: moves its four wings separately, so it can hover and fly backward
• Ant: can carry many times its own weight
• Firefly: a beetle that makes light in its tail end to signal other fireflies
• Grasshopper: long back legs for jumping, and it sings by rubbing a leg against a wing
• Praying mantis: can turn its triangular head to look over its shoulder
• Honeybee: there are more on the bee page

Here's how to tell a true insect: six legs, three body parts and usually two antennae. The body parts are the head, the thorax in the middle and the abdomen at the back. A spider has eight legs and two body parts, so it's an arachnid, not an insect. Snails, worms and centipedes aren't insects either, though most people still call them bugs. Beetles are the biggest insect group of all, with hundreds of thousands of known kinds.

Many bugs are shiny, and you can copy that. On a beetle or a ladybug, leave one small white patch on the shell and color around it. That bare spot reads as a reflection. Ladybugs are red or orange with black spots, a black head and white cheek marks. Monarch butterflies are orange with black veins and white dots along the wing edges. Dragonfly wings are clear, so color only the veins or add the faintest wash of blue. Gel pens and metallic pencils are worth trying on beetles.