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.
Wandering Spider
A large, fast-moving hunter that forages actively at night across leaf litter and low vegetation instead of relying on a web to catch its meals.
spider
Privet Hawk-Moth
The largest resident hawk-moth in much of northern Europe, with streaked brown forewings and a striking abdomen banded in pink and black stripes.
mothMouse Spider
A stout, glossy burrowing spider named for its supposed mouse-like agility, with males often sporting a strikingly colored head and jaws.
spider
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.
butterfly
Great Blue Skimmer
One of North America's largest skimmers, the Great Blue Skimmer's powdery sky-blue body and pale green eyes make it stand out as it cruises woodland pond edges.
dragonfly
Spring Azure
One of the earliest-flying small blue butterflies of spring, with soft pale-blue upperwings, a whitish gray underside dotted with faint dark markings, and no tails on the hindwing.
butterfly
Wood Tick
A flattened, ornately patterned tick that waits on low brush in the Rocky Mountain foothills, ready to grab onto large mammals passing within reach. Its mottled, shield-marked back makes it one of the more distinctive North American ticks to identify.
arachnid
Eastern Amberwing
One of North America's smallest dragonflies, the male Eastern Amberwing glows with solid amber-orange wings and often wags its abdomen in a wasp-like display over floating algae.
dragonflySoft Tick
A wrinkled, leathery, bean-shaped tick that hides by day in nests and cracks, emerging briefly at night to feed and then vanish again.
arachnid
Orange Sulphur
A vivid orange-and-yellow butterfly with sharp black wing borders, one of the most common butterflies over open fields and alfalfa crops throughout North America.
butterflyWhip Spider
A flattened, spider-like arachnid with no venom and no silk, using a pair of extremely long, whip-like front legs as sensitive feelers to navigate the dark.
arachnid
Powdered Dancer
Named for the pale, frosty bloom that coats mature males, the Powdered Dancer is a robust river damselfly often seen basking on sunlit rocks and gravel bars.
dragonfly
Blue-fronted Dancer
A bright blue head and thorax paired with a dark, blue-tipped abdomen give the Blue-fronted Dancer its name, as it hops and flutters along sunny riverbanks in loose groups.
otherSawfly
A wasp relative that never stings, best known for its caterpillar-like larvae that strip leaves from roses, pines, and other garden plants in tidy rows.
waspRed Paper Wasp
A large, rusty-red paper wasp that builds open, umbrella-shaped nests under eaves and in sheltered structures, often seen hovering near its comb.
wasp
Elephant Hawk-Moth
A strikingly colored olive-green and bright pink hawk moth named for its caterpillar's trunk-like tapered front end and large false eyespots.
moth
Drugstore Beetle
A tiny brown beetle with grooved wing covers that once earned its name by burrowing into dried herbs and medicines kept on pharmacy shelves.
beetle
Black Saddlebags
A large, nearly all-black dragonfly with a bold dark patch draped across the base of each hindwing, patrolling high over ponds and open ground like a small kite.
dragonfly
Two-striped Grasshopper
Easily spotted by the pair of pale cream stripes running the length of its body, the two-striped grasshopper is one of the largest and most economically important grasshoppers in North America.
grasshopper-cricketSpur-throated Grasshopper
One of the most familiar grasshopper groups in North America, named for the small spine on its throat and known for including some of the continent's most abundant rangeland species.
grasshopper-cricket
Giant Swallowtail
The largest butterfly in North America, a dark brown giant marked with a bold diagonal yellow band and yellow spotting that forms an X-like pattern when the wings are spread.
butterfly
Giant Mayfly
Known for emerging by the billions in summer swarms so dense they can show up on weather radar, the Giant Mayfly is one of the largest and most abundant mayflies in North America.
aquatic-insect
Fruit Fly
A tiny tan fly with prominent red eyes that swarms around overripe fruit, wine, and vinegar, appearing seemingly out of nowhere thanks to an extremely fast life cycle.
fly
Flesh Fly
A bristly gray fly marked with three dark thoracic stripes and a checkerboard-patterned abdomen, often spotted hovering near carrion or garbage.
fly