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.
Flour Beetle
A tiny, shiny reddish-brown beetle that infests flour, cereal, and other dry stored foods, often found in dense clustered populations.
beetleOdorous House Ant
A dark, unassuming ant best known for releasing a smell reminiscent of rotten coconut when a worker is crushed.
ant
Blow Fly
A brilliant, metallic green fly that gleams like a jewel in sunlight, quickly locating decaying material with an acute sense of smell.
fly
Eastern Forktail
One of the smallest and most adaptable damselflies in eastern North America, the Eastern Forktail thrives in everything from wild marshes to roadside ditches, with bright green-and-black males and color-changing females.
otherScabies Mite
A microscopic, eyeless mite that spends its entire life cycle burrowed within the outer layer of a mammal's skin, among the smallest arachnids known to science. Unlike free-living mites, it has no independent existence away from a host and is studied primarily through microscopic examination rather than direct observation.
arachnid
Spider Mite
A speck-sized arachnid that spins fine silk webbing across infested leaves as it pierces plant cells for their contents, leaving behind a telltale stippled, bronzed appearance. Populations can explode rapidly in hot, dry weather, making it a familiar garden and greenhouse pest.
arachnid
Fall Armyworm
A brownish-green caterpillar marked with a pale inverted "Y" on its head, notorious for rapid, large-scale outbreaks that devastate corn and other grass crops across the globe.
caterpillar-larva
Rice Weevil
A tiny reddish-brown weevil with a long curved snout and four faint pale spots on its wing covers, commonly found infesting stored rice, wheat, and other grain products.
beetle