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.
Grasshopper
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.
grasshopper-cricket
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.
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Rose Chafer
A slender, tan, long-legged scarab beetle that gathers in swarms on rose blossoms and other flowers in late spring, chewing petals and foliage into a lacy, skeletonized pattern.
beetle
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.
beetle
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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June Bug
A chunky, reddish-brown to nearly black scarab beetle that bumbles noisily around porch lights on warm late-spring and early-summer evenings.
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June 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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Saddleback Caterpillar
An unmistakable stout caterpillar with a bright green saddle-shaped patch on a brown back, bristling with clusters of spines along its stocky body.
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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.
beetle
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.
butterfly
Question Mark Caterpillar
A spiny, variably colored caterpillar named for the silver question-mark-shaped mark on the underside of the adult butterfly's wings.
caterpillar-larva
Gulf Fritillary Caterpillar
A vivid burnt-orange caterpillar bristling with rows of branched black spines that specializes almost exclusively on passionflower vines.
caterpillar-larva
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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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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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.
beetle
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.
mantis-stick
Spur-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
Six-eyed Sand Spider
A flattened, sand-colored spider that buries itself just beneath the desert surface, ambushing prey while remaining almost invisible against the dunes.
spider
Harvester Ant
A large, industrious desert ant that clears a bare, sunburned disk of ground around its nest entrance while collecting and storing seeds by the thousands.
ant
Dance Fly
A slender, long-legged predatory fly named for the swarming courtship dances males perform at dusk, often while carrying a captured insect as an offering.
fly
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.
dragonfly
Bumble 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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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.
beetle