Bug words

In an effort to practice writing in Chinese more often, I have once again gotten into the habit of putting a word of the day on my dry erase board at work. Last week was words with 虫 (insect).

Insect (or worm)
虫子 (chóng zi)

Amoeba
变形虫 (biàn xíng chóng) - I think this is really neat because a literal character-by-character translation would be “change shape bug”, and the amoeba is a pretty wild shape-shifter.

Insecticide
杀虫 (shā chóng) - Murder + Bug. How cool is the character 杀? The little x on top makes me think of how little kids draw dead things with Xs for eyes. Dead = murder.

Slug
小毛虫 (xiǎo máo chóng) - Little caterpillar, or literally: "little hair worm". I don't know what's up with this one, 'cuz we all know slugs aren't furry. But I didn't invent the language.