[[quoteright:280:[[WesternAnimation/ABugsLife https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/four_legged_bug.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:280:[[Literature/AnimalFarm Four legs good, six legs bad!]]]]

One convention animators made with insect characters was to draw them with only four legs, not the six legs they characteristically have. For example, the insect's front legs are hands and its hind legs are feet. One of the main reasons is that four legs are easier to animate than six legs and LawOfConservationOfDetail comes into play. Another reason is that in a world of four-limbed mammals including humans, you'll want something for the audience to relate to in your characters and insects with their several limbs have a tendency to [[{{Squick}} squick people out]] so you'll give them four limbs or instead double up some limbs so at least they function as quadripeds or bipeds.

One variant of this trope is to give decapods (ten-legged crustaceans) six or eight legs instead of the ten legs (including claws) that real world decapods have. Again, fewer legs mean less animation time. Another, less common variant that was more common in cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s was to draw spiders with six legs instead of eight. Scorpions, however, are still often drawn with six legs, perhaps because their pincers are easily mistaken for the fourth pair. In reality scorpions' pincers are not legs at all, but modified mouthparts called pedipalps. Strangely, octopuses are rarely drawn with less than their usual eight arms.

Sometimes this trope is inverted in which insects are depicted with eight legs and arachnids with ten legs.

Compare FourFingeredHands, which is based on the same principle. Contrast VertebrateWithExtraLimbs.

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!!Insect Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]
* Buzz the bee from the Honey Nut Cheerios commericals.
* The bee on the Bumblebee tuna cans.
* Jollibee, the mascot of the Filipino fast food chain, only has two arms and two legs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''Comicbook/SpiderHam'': Ant-Ant, the Bee-Yonder, and the X-Bugs. Averted for Ant-Ant in the ''Aporkalypse Now'' miniseries, in which he has two sets of arms (although the Bee-Yonder doesn't).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Eastern European Animation]]
* In ''Animation/VizipokCsodapok'', most insect characters, such as the beetles, bees, and ants, are portrayed with two arms and two legs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* Justified in ''Blog/TinySapientUngulates'', in that the changelings evolved to mimic ponies.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Jiminy Cricket from ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}''. He actually ''started out'' as an anatomically correct cricket (complete with "toothed legs and waving antennae"), but Walt wanted something more likable, so Creator/WardKimball conjured up "a little man with no ears. That was the only thing about him that was like an insect."
* Crikee the cricket from ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}''.
* The ant characters in ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife''. The grasshoppers are not, though - presumably to tap into some of the 'they aren't like us' factor to make them less relatable to the human audience and thus more serviceable villains. ZigZagged with the rest of the cast. The rhinoceros beetle and the stick insect have six limbs, but the mantis, the gypsy moth, the ladybug and the flea all have only four. Also, the caterpillar has ten limbs - which he keeps after morphing into a butterfly, inverting this trope.
* Ray the firefly and other insects from ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog''.
* All the bees and Mooseblood in ''WesternAnimation/BeeMovie''.
* The flies in ''WesternAnimation/FlyMeToTheMoon''.
* Digit the cockroach in ''WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail''. Which is funny because elsewhere in the film [[FurryConfusion photo-realistic cockroaches are seen]].
* All of the insects from ''WesternAnimation/{{Thumbelina|1994}}'' except for [[NonstandardCharacterDesign the Fairy Prince's pet bumblebee.]]
* Frankie the flea from ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryTheMovie''.
* Evinrude the dragonfly from ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuers''.
* All the ants in ''WesternAnimation/{{Antz}}'' have six limbs, but they use the "legs move exactly together" variant.
* ''Averted'' in ''Film/JamesAndTheGiantPeach''
* The cast of ''WesternAnimation/MrBugGoesToTown''
* ''WesternAnimation/StrangeMagic'' shows a praying mantis and a beetle with four-limbed bodies. [[JustifiedTrope They may have been insect-like goblins.]] Most bugs in the movie are showed with their true number of limbs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In the ''Literature/LandOfOz'' books; the character of the Woggle Bug, first appearing in ''Literature/TheMarvelousLandOfOz'', has four limbs despite being a magnified insect.
* ''Ferda Mravenec'' (''Freddie the Ant'') and other insect characters in the books by [[http://www.citarny.cz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=794&Itemid=3763 Ondrej Sekora.]]
* Shield bugs from ''Literature/SeptimusHeap''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Though the exact nature of ''Series/ElChapulinColorado'' (The Red Grasshopper) is never explained, his antennae are shown to be part of his body and he feels pain when they are damage, so is not clear if he is using a uniform or he is a mix between human and grasshopper. In one episode he talks about his family mentioning several insect names, so if he is a humanoid insect, then he has four limps.
* Pistachón Zigzag in ''Series/OdiseaBurbujas'' is a giant Bumblebee with two arms and two legs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]
* Literature/TheBible: ''"But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you"'' (Lev 11:23). This seems to be a semantic issue: the Bible mentions creeping things with four feet...and then describes how locusts have four feet, plus those two extra ones, which is partly how you tell they're kosher. There are a fair number of bugs with two legs different than the others, which the ancient Hebrews apparently counted as "leg-like appendages which are not technically legs."
** For extra confusion, that word for "creeping thing/insect" can also just be translated "winged creature," meaning it's sometimes [[BlindIdiotTranslation badly translated]] as "bird."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Scuttlebugs from ''VideoGame/SuperMario64''.
* The bees from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2''.
* Bug and his family from ''VideoGame/{{Bug|1995}}'' being FunnyAnimals. Oddly enough, many of the insect enemies in the game have the correct amount of six, but some of them still have four.
* ''VideoGame/BugFables'' simultaneously plays this trope straight and averts it. Almost every single major character or NPC stands on two legs while the enemies have the proper number of appendages. Justified in-game with the "Day of Awakening" that caused many insects to gain human sapience and [[AnthropomorphicTransformation gain human-like features]] such as the aforementioned bipedality.
* Most of the anthropomorphic bugs from ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'' have fewer body members than in real life due to the game's aesthetic and art style, with the insects having four legs while the arachnids have six. There are some exceptions, however, such as the Last Stag and Willoh, a rhinoceros beetle and a giraffe weevil with somewhat more realistic designs, accurately having six legs.
* Most Bug-type ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''. See the arachnid section for more.
* Charmy Bee from ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' has only two arms and two legs.
* Princess Apoidea from ''VideoGame/{{Nefarious}}''.
* The viceroy and monarch butterflies in ''VideoGame/DrunkOnNectar'' exhibit this in reference to their real life counterparts.
* ''VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus'': Most arthropod looking creatures have one less set of legs than the Earth variety. Justified because [=SR388=] is not Earth.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/OneMinuteFly'': Every fly seen in the series has just two arms and two legs; the first installment implies that this is because they're part of a prehistoric species that predates the formation of modern six-legged insects.
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[[folder:Webcomics]]
* The characters in ''Gulyk'' look like ants with four limbs until you notice the tiny, tiny arms drawn on their hips.
* The Trolls in ''{{Webcomic/Homestuck}}'' are born looking like insect larvae, with 6 limbs, but grow up to be {{Human Alien}}s.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Bounce the bedbug from ''WesternAnimation/MissSpidersSunnyPatchFriends'' has only two legs. (All the other insects and arachnids in the series, however, have the proper number of limbs, making Bounce a very peculiar exception.)
* The eponymous Atom Ant from the Creator/HannaBarbera cartoon ''WesternAnimation/TheAtomAntShow''.
* The bee that stings James in the ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' episode "Buzz Buzz". Curiously enough, the exact same bee was drawn with six legs in a storybook based on this episode (blame ease of animation), and that the bees in the later episodes were drawn with six legs.
* Zipper the fly from ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers''.
* Spike the bee and Wilbur the grasshopper from the WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts
** Also, the fly from the WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse cartoon, ''The Worm Turns'' who is Mickey's test subject for a spritzer to make prey animals attack their predators.
** The 1935 short ''Mickey's Garden'' features a lot of them as well. Except that one of them for some reason has ''eight legs.''
** Bucky Bug from the WesternAnimation/SillySymphony ''Bugs in Love'' and ten gazillion Disney comics.
* The Flea family from ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures''.
* The ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "To Itch His Own" features a blue, four-legged flea.
** Just about every Warners cartoon with insects and bugs as the star gives them four legs. Examples include "The Fighting 69-1/2th," "Of Thee I Sting," "A Hop, Skip and a Chump" (with Hopalong Casserole the grasshopper) and "Joe Glow, The Firefly." Notable exceptions include the spider in "Meatless Flyday" who is given six legs instead of eight.
* The Uncle Ant plush in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Itchy and Scratchy Land" has four legs.
* Chief Herbert Dumbrowski (a flea) from ''WesternAnimation/TUFFPuppy''
* Inverted: Cricket, a very minor character from ''WesternAnimation/WordWorld'', has eight legs instead of six, despite him being an insect rather than an arachnid.
* Flecko the fly, a reoccurring character in ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife''.
* The cockroaches from ''WesternAnimation/OggyAndTheCockroaches''. They gain the extra pair when they become realistic roaches in the episode "For Real".
* ''Literature/MayaTheBee''. Bees have two hands and two legs. But Flip has four hands and it's even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in one episode of the new 3D cartoon.
* {{Inverted}} in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', where a cricket with eight limbs (six legs and two arms) appear. Unless his maxillary palps are what look like human arms.
* All of the bugs in ''WesternAnimation/ErkyPerky'' are depicted with four limbs--two arms, two legs--although a few also have a set of wings.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other]]
* Victorian tobacco pipes have been found, as seen in ''Series/TimeTeam'', with clay tobacco beetles imprinted for decoration but alas, only four limbs.
* The mascot of the ''Fresno Bee'' newspaper is a four-legged bee.
* The mascot of the New Orleans (formerly Charlotte) Hornets is a four-legged wasp.
** However, the New Orleans Hornets renamed themselves the New Orleans ''Pelicans'', while Charlotte's replacement team, the Bobcats, ended up renaming themselves the "Hornets."
* The mascot of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets has two arms (sometimes with or without two legs).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Members of the family Nymphalidae of butterflies, while having six legs, only use four of their legs. The other two are vestigial.
* Praying mantids, while they have six legs, stand on only four of them. Unlike the Nymphalid butterflies, however, they do still use their third pair of legs, which are frequently compared to/depicted as arms.
[[/folder]]
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!!Decapod Examples

[[folder:Animated Film]]
* The shrimp in ''WesternAnimation/SharkTale'' have six legs.
* Sebastian from ''Franchise/TheLittleMermaid'' has six legs and two claws.
* Tamatoa from ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'' is portrayed with eight limbs: two large claws in the front, four legs for walking (although one of those is partly missing) and two smaller claws in the back. Granted, the hindmost limbs of real life coconut crabs are greatly reduced and are hidden under their carapaces, which makes Tamatoa's statement in his VillainSong about being a decapod despite only having eight functional limbs justified.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Eastern European Animation]]
* In ''Animation/VizipokCsodapok'', the old crayfish walks has only two legs beside his two clawed arms.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* The crab enemies from ''VideoGame/{{Bug|1995}}!'' have six legs and two claws. Just two legs shy of a proper crab.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': In addition to claws, Dwebble has two legs, Krabby, Kingler, Crawdaunt, and Clauncher have four legs, Corphish and Crustle have six, and Clawitzer has none.
* Crabs in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' have only four legs plus two claws.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* A crab from the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} "Hawaiian Holiday" has six legs like an insect.
* Dr. Crawdaddy in ''WesternAnimation/SpiderHamCaughtInAHam'' only has claws for arms and four legs, save for in the MediumShiftGag where he's shown as an actual crawdad with the proper amount of limbs.
* Mr. Krabs from ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' has claws for arms and two peg-like legs. Larry the lobster is the same.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Coconut crabs (on which Tamatoa from ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'' is based) have five pairs of legs like any decapod, but their hindmost pair of limbs are vestigial and usually hidden under their carapace.
[[/folder]]
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!!Arachnid Examples

[[folder:Animation]]
* ''Animation/{{Lamput}}'': The spider in "Lamput & The Spider" has six legs instead of the eight that real-life arachnids have.
* In ''Animation/VizipokCsodapok'', the protagonist, a water spider, and the deuteragonist, a diadem spider, are both portrayed with two arms and four legs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Strips]]
* Spiders in ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' frequently have only six legs, although they have appeared with eight in older strips.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Toys]]
* ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'': the Visorak swarm (barring a few types of [[EliteMooks Kahgaraks]]) and Fenrakk have 4 legs. Some of the before-mentioned Kahgaraks have 6 legs, as well as Fenrakk Spawn Spiders. Strangely {{justified|Trope}} in-universe because they were ''made'' that way by their creators the [[BrotherhoodOfEvil Brotherhood of Makuta]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'' has Edgar, who seems to have 4 legs on the "The Butcher Gang" poster (though a third pair of his legs might of been obscured by Charly and poster damage), and had six legs in the actual cartoons, if the character doodles made by Time-the-Hobo (who is the official 2D animator/Cartoonist for the game) are to be believed. Striker, the {{Mook}} based on an [[AnthropomorphicShift anthropomorphic version]] of Edgar, has two legs and four arms, though his left arms have been [[BodyHorror mangled and mechanically fused into one]], allowing for him to attack [[PlayerCharacter Henry]] with a MegatonPunch.
* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': the Spider Mastermind and her Arachnotrons all have two vestigial arms and four mechanical legs. (Granted, they're just demons with "spider" in their name.) ''Doom 64'' plays it straighter, giving them another pair of mechanical legs while removing their vestigial arms.
* The GiantSpider from ''VideoGame/{{Limbo|2010}}'' only has ''four'' legs.
* The Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Ariados and Galvantula are {{Giant Spider}}s with four legs each. Galvantula's unevolved form is a four-legged tick (still an arachnid). Ariados evolve from Spinarak, which have six legs - two shy of an actual spider. (The two it loses in evolving ''migrate to Ariados' back''.) Dewpider and Araquanid both have six legs as well. Skorupi and Drapion are four-legged scorpions. Tarountula and Spidops, on the other hand, are the only arachnoid Pokemon to have all eight legs, though Spidops' are grouped into four sets of two legs each.
* In ''VideoGame/ScoobyDooFirstFrights'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/ScoobyDooAndTheSpookySwamp'', spiders only have six legs.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' also featured spider enemies with four legs. Interestingly enough, one boss from the first game, [[GiantSpider Tarantox]], has six legs.
* Most arthropods in ''VideoGame/{{Temtem}}'' have the same number of limbs as their inspirations, but Akranox (a scorpion) has four legs and two pincers.
* The spiders in the Franchise/MickeyMouse game ''VideoGame/WorldOfIllusion'' have six legs instead of eight.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:WebOriginal]]
* Blog/CakeWrecks occasionally gets cake creations supposed to resemble spiders, usually around Halloween. One of the worst examples they received were cookies, supposed to be iced to look like spiders on webs, but each had only four legs and the overall result was deemed to look more like "squashed ants on target boards".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* Basically ''every spider character'', including Yellow Spider, in ''WebAnimation/ChallengeToWin'' has four legs, whereas spiders in real life only have eight.
* Same goes for El Nudelo Spider from ''WebAnimation/ObjectTerror''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Ocho from ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' has only six legs, though it is justified because he is 8-bit, so it is easier to animate him with less legs. Ironically his name is Spanish for "eight".
* The spider-shaped ChestInsignia on the costume of the titular character of ''WesternAnimation/SpiderMan1967'' has only six legs, as opposed to the comics and later animations, which depicts the symbol more accurately.
* The six-legged spider from the WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse cartoon, ''The Worm Turns'', who gets attacked by the test subject four-legged fly.
* Spider from ''WesternAnimation/WordWorld'' has six legs and two antennae.
* Sumu the scorpion in ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard'' has six legs plus two pincers.
[[/folder]]
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!!Other Examples

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': One comic had a kid point out that ComicBook/DoctorOctopus's name is inaccurate because he only has six arms (four of which are mechanical tentacles). Ock points out that he's counting his legs too.
** When he upgrades to eight mechanical tentacles (before the ''ComicBook/EndsOfTheEarth'' storyline, as his body is degenerating), Spider-Man asks whether he should call Ock "Dr. Squid", among other less-flattering names.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Eastern European Animation]]
* Inverted with the snails in ''Animation/VizipokCsodapok'', who are portrayed with two arms.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Tuck and Roll, the isopods [pillbugs] from ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'', have eight legs. Isopods are supposed to have 14.
* {{Justified|Trope}} in ''WesternAnimation/FindingDory''. Animators found it hard to give Hank the octopus all eight limbs, so they gave him seven and [[CynicismCatalyst a backstory]] about losing the eighth.
* Ursula, from ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'', has only six tentacles. However, if one counts her two humanoid arms, then she ''does'' have eight limbs. Her sister Morgana, who appears in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'' is animated with eight tentacles plus two arms for a total of ten, which, along with her skinnier physique, makes her look more like a squid than an octopus.
* Dave the Octopus and his hench-octopi from ''WesternAnimation/PenguinsOfMadagascar'' are most of the time animated with six tentacles instead of eight. Interestingly, in one brief gag where Classified counts Dave's tentacles, he is animated with eight of them.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'''s Scolipede is simplified from the centipede's myriad of legs to just four that it stands on and a dozen shorter ones that it doesn't.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'':
** Silithids -- an insectoid sapient species -- all have four legs, or four legs and wings. Crabs also only have four legs. Oddly, many lizard type critters have ''six'', moving in triangular two on one side, one on the other.
** The Nerubians are all over the place: they're supposed to be spider-men, but have six limbs arranged in centaur fashion ([[http://www.wowwiki.com/File:Nerubian2.jpg four legs supporting the abdomen, two arms from the torso]]). The Crypt Lord is supposed to be a mummified Nerubian, but looks like a [[http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20050901212732/wowwiki/images/1/13/Cryptlord.jpg massive armored beetle]] with the same limb distribution. It can summon smaller bugs called carrion beetles, which only have four legs and two massive mandibles. Then you have the Makrura, giant six-limbed lobsters. And to top it all off, the game contains normal crabs and spiders (well, "normal"... the smallest is the size of a dog, and the biggest the size of a building) which have... eight limbs.
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': Most arthropods have four or fewer legs. Arachnodes, spider-like enemies with a full eight legs, are explicitly noted in-universe as unusual, and this and its hermaphroditism have led to in-universe speculation that it's actually two four-legged arthropods, one male and one female, joined together.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': Tektites don't seem to fit any one particular type of arthropod, having the legs connected to a single body structure, but otherwise, they always have four legs -- two less than insects, four less than arachnids.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Squidward of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' has six limbs when he, [[ADogNamedCat as an octopus]], should have eight. Furthermore, his four legs work in pairs, so he walks as if on two legs.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' has example applied to a mythological creature rather than a real one: [[Myth/NorseMythology Sleipnir]]'s most distinguished trait is being a horse with eight legs, but the show depicts it as simply having four like a regular horse, because it was decided an eight-legged horse would be too difficult to animate.
* The circus octopuses from the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} "Merbabies" have six tentacles instead of eight. (They move like elephants in a parade, using one tentacle as a trunk, one as a tail, and the other four as legs.)
[[/folder]]