Bug Encyclopedia
Search and identify bugs & insects — beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, bees, spiders and more — with size, habitat, danger, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Silver-spotted Skipper
A large, chunky brown skipper instantly identified by the bold, translucent silvery-white patch splashed across the underside of each hindwing.
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Fiery Skipper
A small, fast, orange-and-black skipper often seen zipping low over lawns and gardens, with jagged black wing borders that resemble scorched edges.
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Common Blue
A small, sun-loving butterfly whose males flash brilliant violet-blue wings while females wear warm brown with a scattering of orange spots.
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Marbled White
A striking checkerboard butterfly with bold black-and-white wing patterning, despite its name it belongs to the brown butterfly family rather than the whites.
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Comma Butterfly
An orange-brown butterfly with distinctively ragged, scalloped wing edges and a small white comma-shaped mark on the underside of the hindwing, resembling a dead leaf when at rest.
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Cabbage White Butterfly
A small, plain white butterfly with one or two black spots on each forewing and dark wingtips, one of the most common and widespread garden butterflies in the world.
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Peacock Butterfly
A richly colored reddish-brown European butterfly named for the four large blue-black eyespots on its wings, which resemble the eye-like markings on a peacock's tail feathers.
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Common Ringlet
A small, plain buff-orange satyr butterfly of open grassy places, notable for its understated coloring and Holarctic distribution spanning North America, Europe, and Asia.
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Northern Pearly-eye
A shade-loving brown woodland butterfly with rows of dark, pale-ringed eyespots, more often seen resting on tree trunks in forest gaps than flying in open sun.
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Eastern Comma
A ragged-edged orange-and-brown woodland butterfly named for the small, silvery comma-shaped mark on the underside of its hindwing, with a cryptic dead-leaf pattern that camouflages it perfectly when its wings are closed.
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Painted Lady
One of the most widely distributed butterflies on Earth, recognized by its orange-and-black mosaic wings with white-spotted black tips and its habit of long-distance migration across continents.
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Small Tortoiseshell
A vivid orange-red European garden butterfly patterned with black and yellow blocks and a border of blue crescents, one of the most familiar and widely recognized butterflies across its range.
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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
A large, showy yellow-and-black striped swallowtail with elegant tail extensions on the hindwings, one of the most recognizable butterflies of eastern North American woodlands and gardens.
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Little Wood-Satyr
A small, weak-flying brown butterfly with two prominent yellow-ringed eyespots on each wing, common along shaded woodland edges in late spring.
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Red Admiral
A fast-flying, strikingly patterned butterfly with velvety black wings crossed by a bold orange-red band and white-spotted tips, often seen basking on tree trunks or sipping from fallen fruit.
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Tawny Emperor
A warm orange-brown woodland butterfly, close relative of the Hackberry Emperor, best distinguished by its lack of a forewing eyespot and its habit of feeding on sap and dung rather than flowers.
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Cabbage White
A common, small white butterfly with one or two black wing spots, whose green caterpillars are a familiar sight feeding on cabbage-family garden plants.
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Hackberry Emperor
A brown-and-cream butterfly closely tied to hackberry trees, notable for its bold eyespots and habit of landing on people, cars, and other unusual surfaces rather than flowers.
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Meadow Fritillary
A small, fast-flying orange-and-black fritillary of open grassy fields, easily told from its larger cousins by its lack of silvery spots on the underside of the hindwing.
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Diana Fritillary
A large southern Appalachian fritillary famous for extreme sexual dimorphism — males are burnt-orange and black while females are an iridescent blue-black that mimics a distasteful swallowtail.
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Silvery Checkerspot
An orange-brown checkered butterfly named for the row of small silvery-white crescent spots along the underside hindwing margin, commonly seen nectaring at composite flowers in open habitats.
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Baltimore Checkerspot
A striking black butterfly checkered with rows of orange and cream-white spots, closely associated with wet meadows and its turtlehead host plant, and recognized as a state insect symbol in parts of its range.
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White Admiral
A large, dark butterfly crossed by a bold white band on both wings, the northern form of the same species that produces the iridescent blue Red-spotted Purple farther south.
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American Copper
A small, bright orange-and-black butterfly with fiery copper-colored forewings and dusky gray hindwings edged in orange, commonly seen darting low over weedy fields and vacant lots.
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Great Purple Hairstreak
The largest and most iridescent hairstreak in North America, with brilliant blue-green upperwings, red-orange spots on the body and wing base, and long twin tails, its caterpillars feeding on parasitic mistletoe clumps in host trees.
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Coral Hairstreak
A tailless hairstreak identified by a bright row of coral-red spots lining the outer margin of the hindwing underside, often seen nectaring in numbers on milkweed and butterfly weed in midsummer meadows.
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Pearl Crescent
A small, orange-and-black checkered butterfly that is one of the most abundant and widespread species in open fields across the continent, easily recognized by its crescent-shaped pale marking on the hindwing underside.
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