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.
Lily Leaf Beetle
A brilliant scarlet-red beetle with a jet-black head, legs, and underside that feeds almost exclusively on true lilies and fritillaries, often stripping leaves down to bare stems.
beetlePipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar
A dark, velvety caterpillar studded with fleshy orange-tipped tubercles that feeds exclusively on pipevine, storing its host plant's chemistry for later defense as a butterfly.
caterpillar-larva
Bottle Fly
A stout fly with a shining, metallic blue body that produces a loud, deep buzz and is commonly seen darting around trash cans, compost, and outdoor gatherings.
flyHorse Fly Larva
Hidden in the wet mud along pond and stream margins, the horse fly larva is a tapered, tough-skinned predator that hunts other small soil and mud-dwelling invertebrates before eventually transforming into the familiar biting fly.
aquatic-insectCrane Fly Larva
Thick-skinned and worm-like, the crane fly larva, often called a leatherjacket, burrows through wet mud and decaying vegetation at the edges of ponds and streams, breaking down plant material as it grows.
aquatic-insect
Eastern Subterranean Termite
A pale, soft-bodied social insect that lives in vast underground colonies and builds mud tubes to reach and feed on wood cellulose, including structural timber.
other
Potter Wasp
A solitary wasp with a pronounced hourglass waist that sculpts tiny, perfectly rounded mud pots resembling miniature clay jugs, each one stocked with paralyzed caterpillars for a single offspring.
waspNon-Biting Midge Larva (Bloodworm)
Wriggling through soft bottom mud in dense colonies, the bloodworm gets its striking red color from a specialized blood pigment that lets it survive in oxygen-poor water where few other insects can.
aquatic-insectCecropia Moth Caterpillar
North America's largest native caterpillar, a bulky blue-green giant studded with rows of bright red, yellow, and blue knobby tubercles resembling tiny coral formations.
caterpillar-larva
Spring Azure
One of the earliest-flying small blue butterflies of spring, with soft pale-blue upperwings, a whitish gray underside dotted with faint dark markings, and no tails on the hindwing.
butterfly
Damselfly
A slender, delicate relative of the dragonfly with widely spaced eyes and slim wings that fold together over its back at rest, often seen fluttering weakly among reeds and grasses at the water's edge.
dragonfly
Jewel Beetle
A sleek, bullet-shaped beetle wrapped in brilliant iridescent metallic colors — green, copper, blue, or gold — that seem to shift with the angle of light.
beetle
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
Regal Jumping Spider
One of the largest and most striking North American jumping spiders, with a velvety black body, bold markings, and huge iridescent green or blue-lined eyes.
spider
Dogbane Beetle
A small, brilliantly iridescent leaf beetle that shifts between shades of green, gold, blue, and copper depending on the viewing angle, always found on dogbane plants.
beetle
Hickory Horned Devil
An enormous, blue-green caterpillar armed with long, curved orange-red horns tipped in black, giving it a fearsome dragon-like appearance despite being completely harmless.
caterpillar-larva
Eastern Pondhawk
A bold, ground-perching dragonfly whose bright green females and powdery blue males look almost like different species, and which readily preys on other dragonflies.
dragonfly
Vivid Dancer
A brilliant violet-blue damselfly of western streams, the Vivid Dancer is one of the most striking members of the dancer genus and is notably tolerant of warm, mineral-rich waters.
dragonfly
Diana Fritillary
A large southern Appalachian fritillary famous for extreme sexual dimorphism — males are burnt-orange and black while females are an iridescent blue-black that mimics a distasteful swallowtail.
butterfly
Asparagus Beetle
A small, boldly patterned blue-black beetle with cream and orange-red markings that clusters on emerging asparagus spears in spring.
beetle
Gypsy Moth Caterpillar (Spongy Moth)
A bristly, blue-and-red-spotted caterpillar that can strip entire hardwood forests bare during major outbreak years.
caterpillar-larvaBand-winged Grasshopper
A camouflaged grasshopper that flashes vivid yellow, red, or blue hindwings in flight before vanishing again into the dust the instant it lands.
grasshopper-cricket
White Admiral
A large, dark butterfly crossed by a bold white band on both wings, the northern form of the same species that produces the iridescent blue Red-spotted Purple farther south.
butterfly
Io Moth
A striking yellow (male) or reddish-brown (female) silkmoth instantly recognizable by the large, dark eyespot ringed in blue and black on each hindwing, flashed suddenly to startle predators.
moth