Don't bug them.
Top row: The Scorpion, Flik, Maya
Middle row: Reg, Turbo, Kumoko
Bottom row: Maggie, Earthworm Jim, Mothra
Top row: The Scorpion, Flik, Maya
Middle row: Reg, Turbo, Kumoko
Bottom row: Maggie, Earthworm Jim, Mothra
This is a list of works focused primarily on bugs. As in, insects, arachnids, centipedes, etc. Other invertebrates like worms, slugs and snails may also get lumped together with them. Some works feature them as the anthropomorphic main characters, others feature humans dealing with them in one way or another, while some are just depicting them as animals doing their own thing.
A work just having an insect or some other bug, no matter how big, does not qualify. Bugs must be the main characters, the main threat, or otherwise central to the plot. Such works invariably use at least one or several tropes from the Insect Index or Invertebrate Index, and also tend to frequently feature them in the Mouse World, and in cases they don't, they depict them as Big Creepy-Crawlies instead.
See also the Dinosaur Media for another animal phyla-based index. Compare with Insectoid Aliens for insect-like creatures from another planet. Has nothing to do with the other kind of bugs.
Examples
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Insects
These works primarily focus on insects or emphasize them over other bugs. Anime and Manga
Asian Animation
Comic Books
Film — Animated
- The Ant Bully
- Antz
- A Bug's Life
- Bee Movie
- Fly Me to the Moon
- Gallavants
- Inspector Sun and the Curse of the Black Widow
- Katy La Oruga (Katy The Caterpillar)
- Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants
- A Monster in Paris
- Mr. Bug Goes to Town
- Plan Bee
- The Secret of Mulan (not to be confused with Mulan, of which this film is The Mockbuster)
Film — Live-Action
- Absentia
- Ant-Man
- Beginning of the End
- Bite
- Blue Monkey
- Bug (2006)
- The Deadly Bees
- The Deadly Mantis
- Empire of the Ants
- The Fly (1958)
- The Fly (1986)
- Hungerford
- Joe's Apartment
- Mimic
- Mimic 2
- Mimic 3: Sentinel
- Mothra
- Mosquito
- The Naked Jungle
- Nazi Overlord
- Phase IV
- Rebirth of Mothra
- Starship Troopers
- The Swarm (1978)
- The Swarm (2020)
- Them!
- The Wasp Woman
Literature
- archy and mehitabel: About a cockroach and an alley cat.
- The Bees
- Eat Them Alive
- Empire of the Ants
- Flies
- "The Fly"
- The Grasshopper and the Ants
- Grasshopper Jungle
- The History Of Bees
- Leiningen Versus the Ants
- Maya the Bee
- The Metamorphosis
- Mushi-Uta
- Of Ants and Dinosaurs
- Princesses of the Pizza Parlor (ants are featured as one of primary threats)
- Professor Mmaa's Lecture (termites)
- A Rustle In The Grass
- Starship Troopers
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- The Very Quiet Cricket
- War With No Name
Live-Action
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
- Bad Mojo
- Bee Swarm Simulator
- Best Fiends
- Beyond Ynth
- Buck Bumble
- Bug!
- Bugdom
- Bug Fables
- A Bug's Life
- Bugs vs. Tanks
- Donpachi
- Empire of the Ants
- Empires of the Undergrowth
- Flea (2020)
- Grounded
- Hollow Knight
- It Came from the Desert (1989)
- Kouchuu Ouja Mushiking
- Mighty Aphid
- Mister Mosquito
- Mushihime-sama
- Pinobee
- Polyroll
- Ryzom
- SimAnt
- Starship Troopers: Terran Command
- Swarm Simulator
- Zapper
Visual Novels
Web Animation
Webcomics
Web Original
Western Animation
- The Ant and the Aardvark
- Anthony Ant
- Ants In The Plants, a Color Classics cartoon from 1940, now a Public Domain production.
- The Atom Ant Show
- Bug Diaries
- The Buzz on Maggie
- Erky Perky
- Growing Up Creepie
- The Hive
- Insektors
- Minuscule
- Oggy and the Cockroaches
- The Roach Approach
- Roboroach
- Santo Bugito
- Wladislaw Starevich from Lithuania studied entomology in school, and made stop-motion films as a hobby, often using his insect specimens as characters.
- The Cameraman's Revenge from 1912
- The Insects Christmas from 1913
- The Dragonfly And The Ant from 1913
Arachnids, centipedes, etc.
These works focus primarily on arachnids, centipedes and other non-insect bugs with exoskeletons, or emphasize them more than other bugs. Anime and Manga
Eastern Animation
Film — Live-Action
- Arachnia
- Arachnicide
- Arachnophobia
- Big Ass Spider!
- The Black Scorpion
- Earth vs. the Spider
- Eight Legged Freaks
- The Giant Spider Invasion
- Horrors of Spider Island
- Ice Spiders
- Itsy Bitsy
- Kingdom of the Spiders
- Lavalantula
- Spiders
- Tarantula!
- Ticks
- Web of Death (the titular weapon is a lantern housing a deadly spider which can kill an entire room of people in seconds)
Literature
Video Games
- Centipede
- Deadly Creatures
- Spider: The Video Game - in which you are the spider
- Webbed
Web Animation
Webcomics
Western Animation
Gastropods and worms
These works focus primarily on worms and gastropods (slugs and snails), or emphasize them more than other bugs. Film — Animated
Film — Live-Action
Literature
Video Games
- Earthworm Jim, rescuer of Princess Whats-Her-Name.
- Snailiad
Western Animation
- Earthworm Jim
- Mirthworms
- A Merry Mirthworm Christmas (1984)
- A Mirthworm Masquerade (1987)
- Mirthworms on Stage (1988)
Assorted
These works feature multiple kinds of bugs, insect or non-insect alike, but do not emphasize one over another. Literature
- James and the Giant Peach
- Shadows of the Apt (the setting is a society of humanoids with insect-based powers)
- "The Spider and the Fly"
Live-Action TV
Music
- "The Ugly Bug Ball", a song written for the Disney film Summer Magic.
Video Games
Western Animation
