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.
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
Leafcutter Bee
A stout, dark-bodied bee best known not for how it looks but for the neat, circular or oval notches it cuts from leaves, which it uses to line and seal its nest cells.
beeLace Bug
A tiny, flattened true bug with delicately sculpted, lace-like wings resembling fine netting, the lace bug feeds in colonies on the undersides of leaves, leaving a stippled, bleached pattern on foliage.
true-bug
Common Green Darner
A large green-and-blue dragonfly and the official state insect of Washington, best known among dragonfly watchers for an annual migration that spans multiple generations.
dragonfly
Mormon Cricket
A hefty, flightless katydid whose swarms can stretch for miles across western rangelands, marching en masse in search of food and mates.
grasshopper-cricket
Vietnamese Walking Stick
A slender tropical stick insect popular in classrooms and terrariums, notable for females that can produce healthy offspring entirely on their own, without ever mating.
mantis-stick
Green Darner Dragonfly
One of the largest and most widespread dragonflies in North America, its green thorax and target-marked face make it unmistakable as it patrols open water on powerful wings.
dragonfly
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.
butterfly
Migratory Locust
A grasshopper with a split personality, the migratory locust can switch from a quiet, solitary green insect into a boldly marked swarming form that travels in enormous, crop-devouring bands.
grasshopper-cricket
Termite
A pale, soft-bodied social insect that lives in hidden colonies and feeds on cellulose in wood and plant debris, often mistaken for an ant despite belonging to an entirely different insect order.
other
Yellow-spotted Millipede
A striking black millipede lined with bright yellow-orange spots along its flanks, one of the most recognizable invertebrates of the Pacific coast's damp forest floors.
myriapodWhip 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
Yellow Garden Spider
Bold black and yellow markings, a large orb web anchored with a bright zigzag of silk, and a habit of sitting in plain view make the yellow garden spider one of the most eye-catching and recognizable spiders in North American backyards.
spider
Goliath Stick Insect
One of the largest stick insects in the world, this vivid green giant unfurls startling crimson underwings when startled, briefly abandoning its disguise as foliage.
mantis-stick
Dog-Day Cicada
A stout, thick-bodied cicada with mottled green and brown camouflage patterning, named for its loud droning calls heard during the hot "dog days" of late summer.
true-bug
Lacewing
A delicate, pale green insect with large, transparent, intricately veined wings and shining golden or copper-colored eyes, valued as a natural predator of aphids in its larval form.
other
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
Garden Spider
A large, strikingly patterned orb weaver with a black-and-yellow abdomen and a bold zigzag band of silk woven into the center of its web, making it one of the most recognizable garden spiders.
spider
Mud Dauber
A slender, non-aggressive solitary wasp with a distinctively long, thread-like waist, known for constructing tube- or pot-shaped nests out of mud pellets on walls and eaves.
wasp
Black Swallowtail
A striking black swallowtail with two rows of yellow spots and a patch of blue scaling on the hindwings, whose green-and-black banded caterpillars are a familiar sight on garden dill, parsley, and carrot foliage.
butterfly
Bald-faced Hornet
A black-and-white social wasp, actually a type of yellowjacket rather than a true hornet, best known for building large, football-shaped gray paper nests suspended from tree branches or eaves.
waspSnakefly
A slender predator named for its habit of rearing up its long, mobile neck like a tiny cobra when hunting or threatened.
other
Orb Weaver Spider
A stout-bodied spider best known for spinning the classic, near-perfect circular "orb" web strung between plants, eaves, or fences, often rebuilt fresh each night.
spider
Dragonfly
A large, agile aerial predator with an elongated body, enormous compound eyes, and two pairs of strong wings held straight out to the sides at rest, often seen patrolling over water in search of prey.
dragonfly