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.
Soldier Fly Larva
Flattened, leathery, and tapered at both ends, the soldier fly larva drifts just beneath the surface film of ponds and marshes, filtering algae and organic debris while breathing through a fringe of water-repellent hairs at its tail.
aquatic-insect
Grub Worm
A plump, C-shaped, creamy-white larva with a distinct brown head, living underground where it feeds on grass and plant roots before eventually maturing into a scarab beetle.
beetle
White Grub
A pale, C-shaped larva with a brown head capsule and six stubby legs, spending its entire early life hidden underground feeding on roots before emerging as a stout May or June beetle.
beetle
Bess Beetle
A large, glossy jet-black beetle that lives in family groups inside rotting logs, communicating with fellow beetles through squeaks and cooperating to raise larvae, an unusually social lifestyle for an insect of its kind.
beetle
Lime Hawk-Moth
A stout, angular-winged hawk-moth in muted greens, browns, or pinks with deeply scalloped wing margins, closely tied to lime (linden) trees for its larval development.
moth
Regal Moth (Hickory Horned Devil)
One of the largest moths in North America, with orange-red and gray-veined wings on the adult, best known for its enormous, formidable-looking caterpillar, the hickory horned devil, a blue-green giant bristling with long orange spines.
moth
Burying Beetle
A black beetle marked with bold orange-red bands, notable for locating small dead animals, burying them underground, and cooperatively raising larvae with a partner over the buried carcass.
beetle
Luna Moth Caterpillar
A large, plump, apple-green caterpillar with faint yellow side stripes and rows of small red-orange tubercles, the larval form of one of North America's most beautiful giant silk moths.
caterpillar-larva
Pine Sawyer Beetle
A large, long-antennaed longhorn beetle of pine and spruce forests, mottled gray-brown to black, that produces a rasping sound when handled and whose larvae tunnel deep into dead or dying conifer wood.
beetle
Isabella Tiger Moth (Woolly Bear)
Famous chiefly in its larval stage as the banded woolly bear caterpillar, this tiger moth's fuzzy black-and-rust-colored caterpillar is a familiar autumn sight, while the adult is a soft, tawny-orange moth with a stout, furry body.
moth
Metallic Wood-boring Beetle
The North American common name for jewel beetles, emphasizing the wood-tunneling habits of their larvae, which leave telltale flattened, D-shaped exit holes in bark of stressed or dying trees.
beetle
Fox Moth
A stout, reddish-brown moth with a pale diagonal band across each forewing, closely resembling a fox in color, most often noticed as its large, densely furred dark caterpillar basking on open ground in spring.
moth
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
Dragonfly Nymph
A stocky, camouflaged underwater predator that spends months or years stalking prey along the pond bottom before transforming into an aerial dragonfly.
aquatic-insect
Caddisfly
A moth-like insect whose larvae are famous for constructing portable protective cases out of silk and whatever sand, twigs, or debris they can find.
aquatic-insect
Maggot
A pale, legless, tapering grub that wriggles through rotting food and organic waste, the larval stage of a fly.
caterpillar-larva
Two-Spotted Stink Bug
A boldly patterned black-and-orange predatory stink bug named for the pair of dark spots on its back, best known for hunting Colorado potato beetle larvae in gardens and fields.
true-bug
Black Soldier Fly
A sleek, dark, wasp-like fly whose larvae are voracious decomposers of decaying organic material, while the short-lived adults do not feed at all.
fly
Ichneumon Wasp
A slender, long-antennaed parasitoid wasp, often mistaken for a giant mosquito or a stinging insect, that is best known for the extraordinarily long ovipositor some species use to drill into wood and lay eggs on hidden larvae.
wasp
Spined Soldier Bug
A predatory stink bug identified by the sharp, pointed spines projecting from its shoulders, valued in gardens and farm fields for hunting caterpillars, beetle larvae, and other pest insects.
true-bug
Cabbage White
A common, small white butterfly with one or two black wing spots, whose green caterpillars are a familiar sight feeding on cabbage-family garden plants.
butterfly
Mud Wasp
A slender, thread-waisted solitary wasp famous for plastering rows of tube-shaped mud cells under eaves and porch ceilings, each one stocked with paralyzed spiders for its larva.
wasp
Rootworm
Working unseen below ground, rootworm larvae chew tunnels through the root systems of corn and other crops, the underground counterpart to the small, often striped or spotted beetles seen on leaves and flowers above.
beetle
Tachinid Fly
A bristly, house-fly-like insect that looks unremarkable at a glance but hides one of the most important ecological roles among flies: its larvae develop as internal parasites of caterpillars, beetles, and other insects, quietly regulating populations across the landscape. Gardeners often welcome tachinid flies as natural allies against crop-damaging pests.
fly