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.
Field Ant
A large, common outdoor ant that builds conspicuous mound nests of soil and plant debris in sunny open ground and defends itself by spraying formic acid rather than stinging.
antGypsy Cutworm Moth
A plain, mottled grey-brown night-flying moth whose stout, soil-dwelling larvae are known as cutworms for their habit of severing young plant stems near ground level.
mothDarkling Beetle
A uniformly dark, matte-black ground beetle often seen walking deliberately across open soil, known for tilting its rear end skyward in a distinctive defensive posture when disturbed.
beetle
Digger Wasp
A solitary, ground-nesting wasp that excavates neat burrows in bare soil and provisions them with paralyzed prey for its young.
wasp
Black Fly
A small, humpbacked black fly with clear wings that gathers in persistent swarms near flowing streams, favoring exposed skin around the head.
fly
Black Fly Larva
Anchored to submerged rocks in fast-flowing streams by a silken thread, the black fly larva bends into the current and combs the water for drifting particles with a pair of delicate, fan-shaped feeding brushes.
aquatic-insect
Acorn Weevil
A small brown weevil with an extraordinarily long, thread-thin snout, often longer than its own body, which it uses to drill into developing acorns before laying its eggs inside.
beetleWireworm
Slender, shiny, and armor-hard, the wireworm is the long-lived soil-dwelling larva of a click beetle, spending years underground feeding on seeds, roots, and tubers before ever taking beetle form.
beetleTsetse Fly
A stout grayish-brown fly of African woodlands whose rigid, forward-jutting proboscis and scissor-folded wings set it apart from any ordinary house fly.
flyPill Millipede
A short, heavily armored millipede that rolls into a tight, perfect ball when disturbed, closely resembling a pill bug but built from far fewer, broader body segments.
myriapodOwlfly
An acrobatic, dragonfly-mimicking predator instantly given away by its long, clubbed antennae, a feature no true dragonfly ever has.
otherCluster Fly
A sluggish, dark fly covered in fine golden hairs that gathers by the hundreds on sun-warmed walls in autumn before slipping indoors to spend the winter.
fly
Tobacco Hornworm
A large, chunky green caterpillar with diagonal white stripes and a curved red-orange horn at its tail end, often found stripping tomato and tobacco plants.
caterpillar-larvaPhantom Midge Larva
Almost invisible in open water, the phantom midge larva is a slender, transparent predator that drifts through the water column, using a pair of internal gas-filled sacs to hover at precise depths while hunting tiny prey.
aquatic-insect
Ground Beetle
A fast-moving, shiny black or metallic beetle with long legs and prominent jaws, usually found scurrying under rocks and debris where it hunts other small invertebrates.
beetleLeaf Miner
Rather than chewing from the outside, a leaf miner larva tunnels between the upper and lower surfaces of a leaf, leaving behind pale, winding trails or blotches that trace its path as it feeds.
fly
Flesh Fly
A bristly gray fly marked with three dark thoracic stripes and a checkerboard-patterned abdomen, often spotted hovering near carrion or garbage.
flyDung Beetle
A stout, often glossy black or metallic beetle famous for rolling, burying, or tunneling into animal dung, an unglamorous but ecologically vital habit that recycles nutrients back into the soil.
beetleDobsonfly
A massive, primitive-looking insect whose males brandish absurdly long, curved mandibles used for wrestling rivals rather than for feeding.
aquatic-insectBot Fly
A stocky, bumblebee-mimicking fly whose adults never feed and live only long enough to mate and locate a rodent or rabbit burrow for their eggs. Despite their harmless, buzzing adult stage, bot flies are best known through the larvae that develop as internal parasites of small mammals.
flyBombardier Beetle
A dark, quick-moving ground beetle famous for firing a hot, audible chemical spray from its abdomen when disturbed, using two-tone coloring of a reddish head and thorax against blue-black wing covers as a warning signal.
beetleBark Beetle
A tiny, cylindrical, dark-bodied beetle that tunnels beneath tree bark, leaving distinctive branching gallery patterns as the clearest sign of its presence.
beetleAntlion
An insect best known for its larval stage, the doodlebug, which digs a small conical pit trap in loose sand to ambush unwary ants, while the winged adult resembles a slender, delicate damselfly.
otherWeaver Ant
A tree-dwelling ant that builds its nest by stitching living leaves together with silk produced by its own larvae, forming elaborate arboreal colonies defended fiercely by its workers.
ant