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.
House Fly
A gray, fuzzy-bodied fly with four dark stripes on its thorax and large reddish compound eyes, famous for its erratic buzzing flight and tendency to land repeatedly on food and surfaces.
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Phantom 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.
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Dobsonfly Larva (Hellgrammite)
A large, fierce-looking aquatic larva with strong pinching jaws and fringed side gills, spending years hunting under stream rocks before becoming a giant winged dobsonfly.
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Soldier Fly
A wasp-mimicking fly with a flattened, often metallic body that spends its larval life quietly breaking down decaying plant matter or aquatic debris.
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Black Fly
A small, humpbacked black fly with clear wings that gathers in persistent swarms near flowing streams, favoring exposed skin around the head.
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Dance Fly
A slender, long-legged predatory fly named for the swarming courtship dances males perform at dusk, often while carrying a captured insect as an offering.
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Cluster 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.
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Flesh Fly
A bristly gray fly marked with three dark thoracic stripes and a checkerboard-patterned abdomen, often spotted hovering near carrion or garbage.
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Tsetse 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.
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Cactus Fly
A slender, long-legged desert fly that specializes in breeding within the soft, fermenting tissue of decaying cactus, particularly saguaro and other columnar cacti.
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Greenhead Fly
A stout, strikingly green-eyed horse fly that emerges from Atlantic salt marshes in midsummer swarms, where the females bite to feed on blood.
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Marsh Fly
A slender, unassuming fly best known for larvae with a remarkable diet: nearly every species in the family feeds on aquatic or terrestrial snails and slugs, making marsh flies natural specialists in wetland food webs. Adults are often found resting quietly on sedges and other marsh vegetation near the water's edge.
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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.
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March Fly
A stout, all-black fly that emerges in sudden, dense swarms during the first warm days of spring, often dangling its long hind legs conspicuously in slow, low flight over grass. Its name comes from its habit of appearing reliably around the start of the month, sometimes on cue near a particular saint's feast day in the traditional European calendar.
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Screwworm Fly
A metallic blue-green blowfly whose larvae are unusual among maggots for feeding on living tissue rather than carrion, drawn to even small open wounds on warm-blooded animals. The species has been the target of one of the most successful large-scale insect eradication campaigns in history across much of North America.
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Bot 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.
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Louse Fly
A flattened, leathery-bodied fly that clamps onto fur or feathers with stout claws and scuttles sideways like a tiny crab rather than taking flight when disturbed. Several species shed their wings for good once they settle on a permanent host, spending the rest of their lives buried in fleece or plumage.
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Dung Fly
A hairy, often golden-hued fly commonly seen perched on fresh manure in pastures, where it hunts smaller insects as an adult while its larvae develop within the dung itself.
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Robber Fly
A powerfully built, bristly-faced predatory fly that ambushes other flying insects in midair, piercing them with a stout beak-like proboscis.
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Bee Fly
A fuzzy, bee-mimicking fly with a long, forward-pointing proboscis that hovers motionless in front of spring flowers while sipping nectar.
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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.
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Fruit Fly
A tiny tan fly with prominent red eyes that swarms around overripe fruit, wine, and vinegar, appearing seemingly out of nowhere thanks to an extremely fast life cycle.
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Non-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.
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Common House Fly
A dull gray fly with four dark stripes down its back, the house fly is one of the most familiar insects on Earth, following people and their food waste to every continent.
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