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.
Gall Mite
An almost worm-shaped, microscopic mite that induces plants to grow strange pouches, pockets, and felt-like patches around its feeding sites.
arachnid
Flat Rock Scorpion
An extraordinarily flattened, long-tailed scorpion that squeezes into paper-thin rock crevices, among the largest scorpions in the world by length.
arachnid
Fiery Skipper
A small, fast, orange-and-black skipper often seen zipping low over lawns and gardens, with jagged black wing borders that resemble scorched edges.
butterfly
Common Blue
A small, sun-loving butterfly whose males flash brilliant violet-blue wings while females wear warm brown with a scattering of orange spots.
butterfly
Virginia Tiger Moth
An almost pure-white, fluffy tiger moth with a few small black dots on the wings and body, whose caterpillar is the familiar pale yellow "yellow woolly bear."
moth
Bumblebee Moth
A fuzzy, day-flying sphinx moth that hovers at flowers like a bee, with mostly clear wings and a black-and-yellow banded body that mimics a bumblebee.
moth
Mealworm Beetle
A shiny, oval, dark reddish-brown to nearly black beetle whose larva, the familiar 'mealworm,' is a common sight in stored grain products.
beetle
Goliath Beetle
One of the largest and heaviest beetles on Earth, a massive scarab with a bold pattern of black, white, and brown stripes across its shield-like body.
beetle
Brimstone Butterfly
A sulphur-yellow, leaf-shaped butterfly whose folded wings mimic a fresh green leaf so convincingly it is often credited as the origin of the word 'butterfly'.
butterfly
Dead Leaf Mantis
A master of disguise whose broad, curled, vein-textured body is nearly indistinguishable from a curled, decaying leaf lying on the forest floor.
mantis-stick
Ruby Meadowhawk
A small, brilliant-red dragonfly of late summer meadows, so intensely colored that mature males seem to glow when perched low in the grass.
dragonfly
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
Culex Mosquito
A large, worldwide genus of plain brown mosquitoes recognizable by their blunt abdomens and habit of resting flat against surfaces.
fly
Field Cricket
A stout, dark cricket whose loud, rhythmic chirping is one of the most familiar summer and fall night sounds in fields and lawns across much of the world.
grasshopper-cricket
Cabbage White Butterfly
A small, plain white butterfly with one or two black spots on each forewing and dark wingtips, one of the most common and widespread garden butterflies in the world.
butterfly
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
Itch Mite
A microscopic, rounded mite that spends its entire life cycle within the skin of a mammalian host, invisible without a microscope.
arachnid
Blacklegged Tick
A tiny, teardrop-shaped tick with dark legs and a reddish-brown abdomen that lurks in leaf litter along woodland trails.
arachnid
Digger Wasp
A solitary, ground-nesting wasp that excavates neat burrows in bare soil and provisions them with paralyzed prey for its young.
wasp
Predaceous Diving Beetle
A sleek, streamlined beetle built for underwater hunting, carrying its own air supply as it patrols ponds in search of prey.
aquatic-insect
Spangled Skimmer
Named for the bright white 'spangles' at the base of its wings, the Spangled Skimmer pairs a powder-blue male body with crisp black-and-white wing markings.
dragonfly
Biting Midge
A minuscule, gray-winged fly that gathers in dense swarms near wetlands and can slip through window screens unnoticed.
fly
Punkie
An almost invisibly small biting fly that swarms near wetlands at dusk, where only the females take blood meals from animal hosts.
fly
Gypsy Moth Caterpillar (Spongy Moth)
A bristly, blue-and-red-spotted caterpillar that can strip entire hardwood forests bare during major outbreak years.
caterpillar-larva