Free Printable Insect Crossword Puzzles

Print a criss-cross insect crossword of body parts, life cycles, beetles, bees and ants, each with its answer key.

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Insect Crossword

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Answer key: Insect Crossword

1L2N3PUPAER4COCOON5PVT6THORAXA7HL8DR9AGONFLYBNEDEN10QOYUM11BEETLEEEE12ANTENNAN

Across 3 PUPA · 4 COCOON · 6 THORAX · 8 DRAGONFLY · 11 BEETLE · 12 ANTENNA

Down 1 LARVA · 2 NECTAR · 5 POLLEN · 7 HONEYBEE · 9 ABDOMEN · 10 QUEEN

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All 153 clues

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Parts of an Insect 26

  • Abdomen Rear body part, behind the one that carries the legs
  • Antenna Sense organ at the front of an insect; they come in pairs and may look like feathers
  • Chitin Tough material that the outer shell of an insect is made of
  • Claw Tiny hook at the tip of a foot, good for gripping
  • Compound ___ eye: made of many tiny lenses packed side by side, sometimes thousands
  • Elytra Pair of hard wing cases that fold over the flying wings of some insects
  • Exoskeleton Suit of armor that an insect wears in place of bones inside
  • Halteres Tiny knobs that flies have in place of back wings; they keep the insect steady
  • Head The part of an insect that carries its big eyes and its feelers
  • Hemolymph Fluid that does the job of blood in an insect
  • Jaw Mouth part that bites and chews
  • Joint Bending place in a leg
  • Mandible Biting mouthpart; a pair of them cuts and crushes food
  • Ocelli Small simple eyes that many insects have besides their two big ones
  • Ovipositor Laying tube at the tail end of many female insects
  • Palp Short feeler beside the mouth, used to taste and handle food
  • Proboscis Long drinking straw of a mouth, kept coiled up when not in use
  • Scales Dust-like flakes that rub off on your fingers from colorful wings
  • Segment One ring of the body; the rear part of an insect is a row of them
  • Six Half a dozen: the leg total of a grown insect
  • Spiracle Breathing hole in the side of an insect
  • Stinger Sharp tail-end weapon; only female bees have one
  • Thorax Middle body section; every leg of an insect is joined to it
  • Three Number of main body parts an insect has
  • Trachea Air tube that carries oxygen from a breathing hole into the body
  • Vein Thin line that stiffens a clear wing

Life Cycle 23

  • Adult Fully grown, in its final form
  • Caterpillar Soft, wormlike eating machine with stubby legs and a big appetite for leaves
  • Chrysalis Name for the resting form of the bright-winged fliers that sip from blossoms by day
  • Cocoon Soft spun case that hides a changing insect
  • Complete Kind of life cycle that has four parts, one of them a resting form
  • Egg How nearly every insect life begins, laid by the mother
  • Emerge Step out into the open after weeks sealed inside a case
  • Glowworm Wingless insect, or young one, that shines in the dark
  • Grub Fat, pale young insect that lives in soil or rotting wood
  • Hatch What a young insect does to enter the world
  • Imago Science word for an insect in its last, fully grown form
  • Inchworm Young insect that walks by looping its body, as if measuring the ground
  • Instar Step in the growth of a young insect between two sheddings of the skin
  • Larva Wormlike young form that mostly eats and grows
  • Maggot Legless young of a fly
  • Mealworm Wormlike young of a dark insect, raised as pet food and animal feed
  • Metamorphosis Change of body form as an insect grows up
  • Molt Wriggle out of a skin that has grown too tight
  • Naiad Underwater young of an insect that takes to the air when grown
  • Nymph Young insect that skips the wormlike form and grows a little with each shed skin
  • Pupa The quiet in-between form, after the young one and before the grown one
  • Silk Fine thread that some young insects spin
  • Silkworm Mulberry-leaf eater that people have raised for its thread for at least 5,000 years

Kinds of Insects 39

  • Antlion Insect whose young dig funnel pits in sand to trap passing ants
  • Aphid Tiny soft insect that clusters on stems and sucks plant juice
  • Beetle Armored insect; about 400,000 kinds have been named, more than any other group
  • Bumblebee Big, round bee with a coat of soft fuzz
  • Butterfly It sips from blossoms by day and has knobs at the tips of its feelers
  • Caddisfly Insect whose young build little cases of sand and twigs underwater
  • Cicada Loud summer singer; some kinds stay underground for 13 or 17 years
  • Cockroach Flat, fast runner that hides by day and comes out in the dark
  • Cricket Jumper of summer nights that makes its song by rubbing its leathery front wings
  • Damselfly Slender waterside flier that folds its wings along its body when it rests
  • Dragonfly Sharp-eyed hunter on four strong, see-through wings
  • Earwig Insect with tail-end tongs that hides in damp cracks by day
  • Firefly Its tail end blinks in the dark to find a mate
  • Flea Wingless jumper that lives on furry animals
  • Gnat Tiny flying insect that gathers in clouds at dusk
  • Grasshopper Leaper of summer fields, with powerful back legs
  • Honeybee Insect that people keep for the sweet food it makes
  • Hornet Largest of the stinging insects that chew wood into papery nests
  • Housefly Indoor insect with red eyes and one pair of wings
  • Hoverfly Harmless insect striped like a bee that hangs in the air over blossoms
  • Katydid Leaf-green night singer whose thread-like feelers may be longer than its body
  • Lacewing Delicate bright green insect, often golden-eyed, with finely netted wings
  • Ladybug Welcome little dome with spots; in Britain it is called a ladybird
  • Locust Jumping insect that gathers in vast crop-eating clouds
  • Mantis Hunter with a triangle of a face; some kinds can turn it nearly halfway around
  • Mayfly Insect famous for the very brief life of its winged grown-ups
  • Monarch Orange and black flier whose young feed on milkweed
  • Mosquito Thin whining insect with a needle of a mouth for piercing and sucking
  • Moth Flier that is active mostly after dark
  • Scarab Dung-rolling insect that ancient Egyptians carved as a charm
  • Silverfish Wingless, shiny gray insect that wriggles like a tiny fish
  • Stinkbug Shield-shaped insect that lets out a smelly spray when it is disturbed
  • Strider Water ___: insect that skates on the surface of a still pool
  • Swallowtail Large flier named for the forked look of its back wings
  • Termite Wood eater sometimes called a white ant, though it is no ant
  • Walkingstick Insect shaped just like a twig
  • Wasp Slim-waisted relative of bees and ants; some kinds build nests of paper
  • Weevil Its mouth sits at the tip of a long nose; some kinds spoil stored grain
  • Yellowjacket Black and yellow insect that builds paper nests, often in holes in the ground

Bees, Ants and Their Colonies 30

  • Anthill Pile of dirt at the door of an ant nest
  • Apiary Place where bee boxes are kept
  • Army ___ ants: raiders that march in columns and keep no lasting nest
  • Beekeeper Person who looks after bees
  • Brood The young of a bee or ant family, still being raised
  • Caste Group with one job in an insect family, such as the fighters
  • Cell One room in a sheet of bee-built rooms
  • Colony All the ants of one nest, counted together
  • Drone Male bee, which gathers no food
  • Fungus What leaf-carrying ants grow for food
  • Hexagon Shape of each room that bees build, with one more side than a pentagon
  • Hive Box or hollow where thousands of bees live together
  • Honey What bees turn the sweet juice of blossoms into, then store away
  • Honeycomb Sheet of neat, many-sided rooms that bees build
  • Jelly Royal ___: rich food fed to a future mother bee
  • Leafcutter Kind of ant seen marching in a line, each one holding a green scrap overhead
  • Mound Hill of earth raised by a family of wood-eating insects
  • Nectar Sugary drink that a blossom offers to its visitors
  • Pheromone Chemical scent signal passed between insects
  • Pollen Powder from blossoms that a bee packs into baskets on its back legs
  • Propolis Sticky "bee glue" used to seal small gaps in the nest
  • Queen Bee that is mother to most or all of the others in her family
  • Soldier Member of an ant family whose job is defense
  • Swarm Great crowd of bees in the air at once, flying off to found a second nest
  • Trail Scent path that ants follow in a line
  • Tunnel Passage that ants dig to join one chamber to the next
  • Waggle ___ dance: figure-eight moves that tell other bees where food is
  • Wax Material that bees make and shape into rooms
  • Weaver ___ ants: builders that stitch living leaves into a nest
  • Worker Female bee that does most of the chores and rarely has any young of her own

How Insects Live 35

  • Amber Clear yellow-brown stone that began as sticky tree gum and may have an insect in it
  • Arachnid Scorpions and ticks are this: eight legs and no feelers
  • Arthropod Animal with legs that bend in sections and an outer shell; insects and crabs are both this
  • Bioluminescence Light made by a living thing
  • Burrow Home that a digging insect scoops out of the earth
  • Buzz Noise that tells you a bee is near
  • Camouflage Blending in with the background to stay hidden
  • Chirp One note of a singing insect on a summer evening
  • Cochineal Red dye made from a tiny insect that lives on cactus
  • Crawl Get around the slow way, without wings or a jump
  • Decomposer Living thing that helps a fallen log rot away into the earth
  • Diapause Pause in growth that lets an insect wait out winter or drought
  • Entomologist Scientist who studies insects
  • Entomology Science of insects
  • Flight Insects are the only animals without backbones that have mastered it
  • Gall Odd swelling that a plant grows around an insect living inside it
  • Garden Backyard patch of blooms that brings bees and other visitors
  • Habitat A marsh for one insect, a meadow for another: where it naturally lives
  • Honeydew Sugary droplets left by plant-juice suckers, which ants collect
  • Invertebrate Spineless animal: the group holds insects, worms and snails
  • Migrate Fly south in fall and north in spring, for example
  • Million About this many kinds of insects have been named so far
  • Mimicry Looking like something else, as a harmless insect that copies a stinging one
  • Nocturnal Out and about only after dark
  • Pest Insect that harms crops or bothers people
  • Pollinator Any animal that helps plants make seeds by moving powder between blossoms
  • Predator A hunter; among insects, one that catches and eats others
  • Prey The hunted one, in a chase between two animals
  • Sap Plant juice that many small insects suck
  • Scavenger Clean-up animal that eats what others have left behind
  • Shellac Glossy coating made from the resin of the lac insect
  • Species Each different kind is one of these when scientists list living things
  • Spider Web spinner that is no insect: add up its legs and you get eight
  • Springtail Tiny soil dweller that flicks itself into the air with a spring folded under its body
  • Stridulation Making sound by rubbing two body parts together

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for a science unit on insects, in five sets: parts of an insect, the life cycle, kinds of insects, bees, ants and their colonies, and how insects live. Facts were checked against English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA 4.0) and the Insects and Invertebrates page of the U.S. National Park Service (nps.gov), in October 2026. Spiders appear only as animals that are not insects. Licence: own work

How it works

These free printable insect crossword puzzles are vocabulary crosswords for a science unit. The first puzzle has 12 easy answers, among them Thorax, Antenna, Larva, Pupa and Beetle. Each fits Letter or A4.

Read the full guide

Five sets after the easy one

Parts of an Insect has Exoskeleton, Spiracle and Proboscis. Life Cycle has Nymph, Chrysalis and Metamorphosis. Kinds of Insects has Weevil, Mantis and Cicada. Bees, Ants and Their Colonies has Drone, Waggle and Leafcutter. How Insects Live has Camouflage, Pollinator and Diapause.

Insects, and one spider

Every animal in Kinds of Insects has six legs. Spider and Arachnid are answers in How Insects Live, clued by what sets them apart.

  • Print Parts of an Insect before a labeling lesson, and Life Cycle once the class has watched a caterpillar or a mealworm change.

Questions and answers

Are the insect crossword puzzles free to print?

Yes, and there is no sign-up. Print one for each student; the answer key follows on its own sheet, so it is easy to hold back.

What grade are the insect crosswords for?

Easy Insect Words suits grades 2 to 4, with answers such as Hive, Molt and Ladybug. The five themed sets, with answers such as Ovipositor and Hemolymph, suit grades 4 to 8. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

What are the three body parts of an insect?

The head, the thorax and the abdomen. The head carries the eyes and the antennae, and all three pairs of legs are attached to the thorax. All three parts are answers in the easy set.

Is a spider an insect?

No. A spider is an arachnid: it has eight legs and no antennae, while an insect has six legs and a pair of antennae.

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