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.
Leafhopper
A small, wedge-shaped insect that darts sideways and springs away in quick hops when disturbed, often brightly striped or patterned and found clinging to the underside of leaves.
true-bugGrasshopper
A robust, strong-jumping insect with short antennae and powerful hind legs, commonly seen springing away through grass and low vegetation on warm sunny days.
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Click Beetle
An elongated, streamlined beetle famous for the audible clicking snap it makes to flip itself upright when placed on its back, a spring-loaded escape mechanism unique to this family.
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Mexican Bean Beetle
A copper-colored, spotted beetle resembling an overgrown ladybird that feeds on bean plant leaves along with its spiny yellow larvae.
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Bagworm Moth
A moth best known for its larva's habit of constructing and living inside a spindle-shaped case of silk and plant debris that hangs from twigs, with adult males a plain sooty-winged moth and females remaining wingless and grub-like inside the bag for life.
mothJune Bug
A chunky, reddish-brown to nearly black scarab beetle that bumbles noisily around porch lights on warm late-spring and early-summer evenings.
beetleJune Beetle
A stout, reddish-brown scarab beetle that emerges in late spring and early summer, famous for clumsily bumping into porch lights and window screens at night.
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Rosy Apple Aphid
A small, dusty pink to purplish-gray aphid that clusters on apple foliage in spring, causing distinctive curled, reddened leaves that make its presence easy to spot even before the insects themselves are seen.
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Tiger Beetle
A fast, metallic-hued ground beetle with oversized sickle-shaped jaws that sprints and short-flies down open sandy trails in pursuit of tiny prey.
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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.
butterflySpur-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.
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Chinese Mantis
One of the largest praying mantises found in North America, an introduced species with a lean brown-and-green body and grasping spined forelegs built for ambushing insect prey.
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Cockchafer
A large, reddish-brown scarab beetle with distinctive fan-shaped antennae, famous for its noisy, clumsy evening flights around trees in late spring, giving rise to its alternate name, the May bug.
beetleBumble Bee Queen
The large, robust foundress of a bumble bee colony, noticeably bigger and fuzzier than her worker offspring, seen alone in early spring searching for a nesting cavity before her colony's first workers emerge.
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Anopheles Mosquito
A slim, mottled-winged mosquito best known for the distinctive head-down, tail-up posture it strikes while resting on walls and vegetation.
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Mourning Cloak
A dark, velvety maroon-brown butterfly edged with a ragged cream-yellow border and a row of iridescent blue spots, notable for overwintering as an adult and often being one of the very first butterflies seen flying in early spring.
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Common House Mosquito
A slender, drab brown mosquito that emerges at dusk from catch basins and forgotten containers to fill neighborhoods with its familiar high-pitched whine.
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Black Vine Weevil
A flightless, all-black snout beetle notorious for notching the edges of leaves at night while its underground larvae feed on plant roots and crowns.
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Common Baskettail
One of the earliest dragonflies to appear each spring, this brown, green-eyed skimmer often swarms in numbers over sunny clearings before most other species have emerged.
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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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Mason Bee
A compact, metallic blue-black bee that nests in existing narrow cavities and seals its brood cells with mud, prized as one of the most efficient early-spring pollinators of fruit trees.
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Blue Orchard Bee
A small, metallic blue-black solitary bee widely valued as an efficient early-spring pollinator of fruit trees, nesting in narrow tunnels and hollow stems rather than building hives.
beeLeaf Insect
A living illusion, this flattened green insect reproduces the veins, edges, and even blemishes of a real leaf so precisely that it can vanish while resting in plain sight.
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Deer Fly
A small but aggressive fly with strikingly patterned, dark-banded wings and bright green or gold eyes, often circling the head and shoulders while hunting for a blood meal.
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