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.
Giant Prickly Stick Insect
A hefty, spine-covered phasmid that mimics dead leaves and curled bark, and when threatened, arches its abdomen like a scorpion's tail in a dramatic bluff display.
mantis-stick
Springtail
A minuscule, wingless hexapod best known for its spring-loaded tail-like structure that flicks it into sudden, erratic hops when disturbed, often found in huge numbers in damp soil and leaf litter.
other
Jerusalem Cricket
A large, wingless, ground-dwelling insect with a shiny amber body, a strikingly human-like face, and a robust, banded abdomen, most often uncovered while digging in soil.
grasshopper-cricket
Ant-mimic Spider
A slender jumping spider that walks on six legs while waving the front pair like antennae, convincingly passing itself off as an ant to fool predators and prey alike.
spider
Book Scorpion
A tiny, flattened arachnid that looks like a scorpion in miniature, minus the tail, scuttling sideways through old paper and dusty corners while hunting even smaller pests.
arachnid
Mayfly Nymph
A short-lived aquatic grazer with feathery gills along its abdomen, living for months underwater before a brief, spectacular mass emergence as a winged adult.
aquatic-insect
Walking Stick
A remarkably twig-like insect with a long, slender, brown to green body and thin legs, so effective at mimicking a plant stem that it can be nearly invisible while motionless on vegetation.
mantis-stick
Long-jawed Orb Weaver
A slender, stick-like spider with oversized jaws that stretches its legs flat along a stem or spins a loose orb web low over water.
spider
Diving Bell Spider
The world's only truly aquatic spider, famous for spinning an underwater silk bell that it fills with air, allowing it to live, hunt, and breed almost entirely submerged.
spider
Whip Scorpion
A flattened, spider-like arachnid with a pair of extraordinarily long, whip-thin front legs used to feel out its surroundings in the dark, and large spiny pedipalps held out front like a crab's claws. Despite the name and fearsome appearance, it has no stinger and no fangs.
arachnid
Lace Weaver Spider
A stocky, mottled spider that spins a distinctive bluish, woolly-looking lace-like web across bark and wall crevices to snare passing insects.
spider
Cave Spider
A long-legged orb weaver adapted to the twilight zone of caves, spinning large webs across cavern mouths and dangling its egg sacs from silk threads deep within the darkness.
spider
Birdwing Butterfly
Among the largest butterflies on Earth, birdwings soar through rainforest canopies on angular, bird-like wings. Males dazzle with iridescent greens, golds, and blues, while the larger females wear more subdued browns.
butterfly
Eastern Dobsonfly
The classic dobsonfly of eastern North America, famous for the male's outsized, tusk-like jaws and for its aquatic larva, the hellgrammite, a favorite live-bait fishing lure.
aquatic-insect
March Fly
A stout, all-black fly that emerges in sudden, dense swarms during the first warm days of spring, often dangling its long hind legs conspicuously in slow, low flight over grass. Its name comes from its habit of appearing reliably around the start of the month, sometimes on cue near a particular saint's feast day in the traditional European calendar.
fly
Mole Cricket
A stout, velvety brown cricket relative with broad, shovel-like front legs adapted for digging, spending most of its life burrowing just beneath the surface of moist soil.
grasshopper-cricket
Asparagus Beetle
A small, boldly patterned blue-black beetle with cream and orange-red markings that clusters on emerging asparagus spears in spring.
beetle
Psyllid
A tiny, sap-sucking hopper that resembles a miniature cicada and springs away in a blur when its host leaf is disturbed.
true-bug
Follicle Mite
An elongated, microscopic mite shaped almost like a tiny worm, living deep within hair follicles and oil glands of mammal skin where it spends its entire life largely unnoticed.
arachnid
Water Scorpion
An elongated, twig-like aquatic true bug with grasping raptorial forelegs and a long, thin breathing tube at the tail end, resembling a slender scorpion as it lies in ambush among submerged plants.
aquatic-insect
Pavement Ant
A stocky brown to black ant famous for the dramatic "ant wars" its colonies wage along sidewalk cracks each spring.
ant
Bush Cricket
Known by its long, thread-like antennae and evening chorus of chirps, this leaf-colored insect spends its life hidden among grass and foliage, often heard far more often than seen.
grasshopper-cricket
Pink Toe Tarantula
An agile, tree-dwelling tarantula with a dark velvety body and distinctive pale pink tips on its feet, the pink toe spends nearly its entire life above ground, spinning silk retreats among leaves and bark high in the rainforest canopy.
spider
Wolf Spiderling
A tiny, fast-moving juvenile wolf spider, often seen riding in dozens on its mother's back before dispersing to hunt on its own across open ground.
spider