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.
Pharaoh Ant
A tiny, pale-yellow ant that thrives almost exclusively indoors, forming vast interconnected colonies within the warm voids of heated buildings.
ant
Little Black Ant
A tiny, shiny jet-black ant that forms long, wandering foraging trails across lawns, patios, and kitchen counters in search of sweets and protein.
ant
Ant-mimic Spider
A slender jumping spider that walks on six legs while waving the front pair like antennae, convincingly passing itself off as an ant to fool predators and prey alike.
spider
Harvester Ant
A large, industrious desert ant that clears a bare, sunburned disk of ground around its nest entrance while collecting and storing seeds by the thousands.
ant
Carpenter Ant
A large, often shiny black ant that excavates smooth tunnels in dead or damp wood for nesting, recognizable by its size, evenly rounded thorax, and elbowed antennae.
ant
Leafcutter Ant
A highly organized ant famous for marching in long trails while carrying disc-shaped pieces of leaf many times their own size, which they use to cultivate fungus gardens deep underground.
ant
Odorous House Ant
A dark, unassuming ant best known for releasing a smell reminiscent of rotten coconut when a worker is crushed.
ant
Antheraea Silkmoth
A large, robust silkmoth in the genus Antheraea with broad reddish-brown to tan wings, each marked with a prominent transparent, eye-like spot, representing a group of giant moths long valued for producing wild silk.
moth
Backswimmer
A boat-shaped aquatic true bug that swims upside down using oar-like hind legs, patrolling pond water in search of small prey.
aquatic-insect
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
Wandering Glider
One of the most widely traveled insects on Earth, this golden dragonfly rides high-altitude winds across oceans and continents, rarely landing as it forages endlessly on the wing.
dragonfly
Snowy Tree Cricket
Nicknamed the thermometer cricket, this pale, delicate insect sings a steady, rhythmic chirp whose pace rises and falls so predictably with temperature that its chirp rate can be used to estimate the air temperature.
grasshopper-cricket
Spittlebug
A small hopping true bug best known in its nymph stage, which surrounds itself in a frothy mass of white foam on plant stems, commonly called cuckoo spit.
true-bug
Mealybug
A soft, oval insect coated in a powdery white waxy secretion that gives it a fuzzy, cotton-like appearance, typically found clustered in leaf joints and along stems of houseplants.
true-bug
Cochineal
A tiny, sedentary scale insect that lives clustered on prickly pear cacti beneath a protective coat of white, waxy fluff, historically prized for the deep red pigment it produces.
true-bug
Walking Stick
A remarkably twig-like insect with a long, slender, brown to green body and thin legs, so effective at mimicking a plant stem that it can be nearly invisible while motionless on vegetation.
mantis-stick
Thrips
A minuscule, slender insect with fringed, feather-like wings, often noticed only as a fast-moving dark speck darting across a flower petal or windowsill.
other
Giant Walking Stick
The longest insect in the United States, this brown, thread-thin giant sways gently on its perch to complete the illusion of a wind-stirred twig.
mantis-stick
Whitefly
A tiny, moth-like white insect that clusters on the undersides of leaves and bursts into a snowy cloud when the plant is disturbed. Despite the name, it is not a true fly but a sap-feeding relative of aphids and scale insects.
true-bug
Armyworm
A striped, greenish-brown caterpillar that gets its name from its habit of migrating in dense, destructive groups across grass and grain fields.
caterpillar-larva
Red Flour Beetle
A tiny, flattened, rust-red beetle found in stored flour and grain worldwide, capable of flight and closely resembling the confused flour beetle apart from the shape of its antennal club.
beetle
Big-Eyed Bug
A small, broad-headed true bug named for its noticeably large, bulging compound eyes, the big-eyed bug is a beneficial predator that patrols low vegetation and soil surfaces for small pest insects.
true-bug
Mediterranean Flour Moth
A small, pale grey moth with fine dark wavy lines on its forewings, whose larvae spin webbing through flour, grain, and other stored dry food products, making it a well-known pest of mills and pantries.
moth
Old Lady Moth
A large, dusky brown noctuid moth with an intricate, wood-grain-like pattern of dark streaks and pale flecks across broad wings, often found resting motionless in sheds and against tree bark by day.
moth