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.
Cuckoo Bee
A slender, wasp-like bee that lacks pollen-carrying hairs because it never gathers its own pollen, instead sneaking into the nests of other solitary bees to lay eggs that hatch and consume the host's food stores.
bee
Common House Mosquito
A slender, drab brown mosquito that emerges at dusk from catch basins and forgotten containers to fill neighborhoods with its familiar high-pitched whine.
fly
Oleander Hawk-Moth
A large, strikingly camouflaged hawk-moth patterned in swirling olive-green, pink, and cream stripes that resemble oleander foliage, with a streamlined, torpedo-shaped body built for fast, hovering flight.
moth
Moth
A broad group of scale-winged insects related to butterflies, typically nocturnal, with stout, often furry bodies and feathery or thread-like antennae.
moth
Mole Cricket
A stout, velvety brown cricket relative with broad, shovel-like front legs adapted for digging, spending most of its life burrowing just beneath the surface of moist soil.
grasshopper-cricket
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
Ogre-faced Spider
A twig-like nocturnal spider with enormous, light-gathering eyes that weaves a small rectangular net and hurls it over passing prey in a lightning-fast ambush.
spider
Digger Bee
A robust, fast-flying, densely furry solitary bee that excavates tunnels in bare or sloped soil, often confused with bumble bees due to its bulky, hairy build and loud buzzing flight.
bee
Fishfly Larva
A flattened, armor-plated predator of stream bottoms, the fishfly larva spends one to three years underwater seizing prey with sickle-shaped jaws before briefly taking wing as a short-lived winged adult.
aquatic-insect
Golden Silk Orb-Weaver Spider
Famous for spinning enormous webs of shimmering golden silk, the golden silk orb-weaver is a large, long-legged spider of warm climates. Females dwarf the tiny males and hang head-down in their sprawling snares.
spider
Earthworm
A long, smooth, segmented soil-dweller with no legs, eyes, or shell, best recognized by its ringed body and the pale saddle-like band (clitellum) found on mature individuals.
other
Jerusalem Cricket
A large, wingless, ground-dwelling insect with a shiny amber body, a strikingly human-like face, and a robust, banded abdomen, most often uncovered while digging in soil.
grasshopper-cricket
Midge
A slender, mosquito-like fly that forms dense swarms near water at dusk, easily mistaken for a mosquito but lacking any biting mouthparts.
fly
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
Ant
A small eusocial insect that lives in highly organized colonies, instantly recognizable by its narrow pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and single-file foraging trails.
ant
Black Garden Ant
A familiar small, glossy black ant that forms visible foraging trails across patios and garden paths and nests beneath stones, pavers, and lawns.
ant
Sleepy Orange
A small, deep orange sulphur butterfly with dark wing borders and a low, wandering flight, named for a faint dark mark that suggests a half-closed, sleepy eye.
butterfly
Cabbage Looper
A pale green caterpillar with thin white stripes that arches its back into a loop as it inches along cabbage and other garden leaves.
caterpillar-larva
Cabbage Looper Moth
A drab mottled-brown moth best known for its pale green, looping caterpillar that arches its back like an inchworm while feeding on garden vegetables.
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
Cone-headed Katydid
A large, grass-colored katydid named for its sharply pointed, cone-shaped head, best known for producing some of the loudest, most sustained buzzing calls of any North American insect.
grasshopper-cricket
Mourning Cloak
A dark, velvety maroon-brown butterfly edged with a ragged cream-yellow border and a row of iridescent blue spots, notable for overwintering as an adult and often being one of the very first butterflies seen flying in early spring.
butterfly
Cicada Killer's Prey Cicada
A large, thick-bodied, clear-winged insect best known for the loud, buzzing chorus males produce from treetops on hot summer afternoons, and a preferred prey item of the cicada killer wasp.
true-bug
Green June Beetle
A large, velvety green scarab beetle with bronze edges that flies with a loud buzzing drone on warm summer days, often seen around ripening fruit.
beetle