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.
Vapourer Moth
A small tussock moth with striking sexual dimorphism: rusty-orange, day-flying males with feathery antennae contrast with flightless, grub-like grey females that never leave their cocoon to lay eggs.
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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.
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Underwing Moth
A master of camouflage whose bark-patterned forewings hide brightly colored, banded hindwings that flash into view only when the moth is disturbed in flight.
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Armyworm Moth
A plain tan to reddish-brown moth whose caterpillars are famous for marching in large groups across fields, stripping grasses and grain crops as they move.
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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.
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Sphinx Moth
A large, streamlined, fast-flying moth with narrow triangular wings and a robust, tapering body, famous for hovering at flowers at dusk like a hummingbird.
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Atlas Moth
One of the largest moths in the world by wing surface area, the Atlas Moth is a giant reddish-brown silkmoth with striking triangular wingtip patches that resemble the heads of snakes.
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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.
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Imperial Moth
One of the largest and most variably patterned silk moths in North America, with broad yellow wings mottled in shades of purple, brown, and pink, and a caterpillar that can grow to impressive size on a wide range of forest trees.
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Cinnabar Moth
A striking black-and-red day-flying moth whose boldly banded orange-and-black caterpillars feed conspicuously on ragwort, sequestering plant compounds as a chemical defense advertised by their vivid warning colors.
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Peppered Moth
A medium-sized moth with finely speckled black-and-white wings that camouflage it against lichen-covered bark, world-famous as a textbook example of evolution in action during the industrial era.
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Vaporer Moth
A tussock moth with dramatic sexual differences: the male is a small rusty-brown day-flying moth with a white wing spot, while the female is a flightless, wingless gray sac-like insect that never leaves her cocoon.
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Cecropia Moth
North America's largest native moth, the Cecropia is a spectacular giant silkmoth with reddish-brown wings marked by crescent-shaped white spots and bold bands of red, white, and tan.
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Southern Flannel Moth (Puss Caterpillar Moth)
A small, densely furred tan-to-orange moth best known for its unusual larva, a soft-looking, cat-tailed caterpillar whose fluffy coat hides rows of venomous spines.
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Common Clothes Moth
A tiny, plain golden-buff moth that rarely flies far into open light, best known not for its adult form but for its silk-spinning larvae that chew holes in wool, fur, and feathers.
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White Ermine Moth
A soft, fuzzy white moth speckled with small black dots, resembling the ermine fur trim after which it is named, commonly seen resting on vegetation or attracted to lights on summer nights.
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Gypsy Cutworm Moth
A plain, mottled grey-brown night-flying moth whose stout, soil-dwelling larvae are known as cutworms for their habit of severing young plant stems near ground level.
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Salt Marsh Moth
A fluffy white tiger moth with black-speckled forewings and an orange-and-black abdomen, best known through its fast-moving, densely bristled caterpillar that wanders widely in late summer.
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Pine Processionary Moth
An unremarkable grey-brown moth known almost entirely through its larvae, which build large silken nests in pine trees and travel to feed in long, head-to-tail processions covered in fine defensive hairs.
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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.
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Gypsy Moth Caterpillar
A hairy, mottled gray caterpillar marked with rows of paired blue and red dots down its back, notorious for periodic outbreak years that can strip entire forests bare.
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Privet Hawk-Moth
The largest resident hawk-moth in much of northern Europe, with streaked brown forewings and a striking abdomen banded in pink and black stripes.
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Poplar Hawk-Moth
A large, grayish-brown hawk-moth with an unusual resting posture in which the hindwings project forward past the forewings, revealing a hidden rust-red patch when disturbed.
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Fall Webworm Moth
A plain white (sometimes lightly speckled) moth whose caterpillars are far more familiar than the adult, spinning large communal silk webs over the ends of tree branches in late summer and early autumn.
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