insectoid adj.

The third creature was hard, stiff, plated, and insectoid.

At the time of our visit to the most striking of these insectoid worlds the world-population consisted of many great nations of swarms. Each individual swarm had its own nest, its Lilliputian city, an area of about an acre, in which the ground was honey-combed to a depth of two feet with chambers and passages. The surrounding district was devoted to the cultivation of the moss-like food-plants. As the swarm increased in size, colonies might be founded beyond the range of the physiological radio system of the parent swarm. Thus arose new group-individuals. But neither in this race, nor in the race of bird-clouds, was their anything corresponding to our successive generations of individual minds. Within the minded group, the insectoid units were ever dying off and giving place to fresh units, but the mind of the group was potentially immortal.

They revealed a long-bodied insectoid creature, rather attractively colored in a complex green and gold pattern. They went upon two legs, and used their other six legs for wielding tools, the tools with which they destroyed their forests and their soil. Their heads were handsome, almost animal in shape, with well defined nose and chin like humans.

The malevolent insectoid shapes shown pouring from the skies bore no resemblance at all to Prince Zervashni, who, apart from his four eyes, might have been mistaken for a panda with purple fur—and who, moreover, had come from Rigel, not Sirius.

The thranx were as alien as any race man had yet encountered. A hundred-percent insectoid, hard-shelled, open circulatory system, compound eyes, rigid, inflexible joints…and eight limbs. And they were egg-layers. As a news commentator of the time put it, ‘they were completely and delightfully weird.’

The Bugs fulfill the effectively mandatory requirement in an SF game for an insectoid race. They were influenced by quite a few bug races in SF.

The tour agency said…you hardly noticed them, they deliberately blended in so well. How a seven-foot insectoid thing with gleaming russet skin can look like an Egyptian I don’t know.

The insectoid aliens had haunted her nightmares.

The short bounty hunter, with the large insectoid eyes and breathing hoses, stood in the doorway.

And Hhayazh, in particular, is the sort of twiggy, bristle-covered, black-carapaced insectoid sentience that gives groundlubbers the shrieking jimjams.