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.
Wolf Spider
A robust, hairy, ground-dwelling spider with excellent night vision and a habit of chasing down prey rather than trapping it in a web; females are often seen carrying an egg sac or a back full of spiderlings.
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Bed Bug (Bat Bug)
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless true bug that hides in tight seams and crevices by day and feeds on blood at night, closely related to the bat bug, which occupies a similar niche in bat roosts.
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Shield Bug (Stink Bug)
A broad, shield-shaped true bug that releases a sharp, pungent odour from glands on its body when disturbed, a defence that gives the whole family its common name.
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Cobweb Spider
A common household spider that spins a messy, three-dimensional tangle of silk in dark corners and drags entangled insects up into the maze to feed.
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Sun Spider
A fast-running, fiercely built desert arachnid with oversized jaws, often mistaken for a giant spider despite belonging to an entirely different arachnid order.
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Purseweb Spider
A secretive, tube-dwelling spider that spends nearly its entire life hidden inside a silk-lined burrow extension camouflaged with soil and debris on the surface.
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Barn Spider
A brownish, mottled orb weaver famous as the inspiration for Charlotte's Web, commonly found spinning large nightly webs on barns, porches, and other structures.
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Cave Spider
A long-legged orb weaver adapted to the twilight zone of caves, spinning large webs across cavern mouths and dangling its egg sacs from silk threads deep within the darkness.
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Wall Spider
A tiny, flattened spider that spins a small disc-shaped web hugging the surface of a wall and darts sideways in a quick, erratic dash when disturbed.
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Hobo Spider
A fast-running, brown funnel-web spider with a chevron pattern down its abdomen, the hobo spider builds a flat, non-sticky sheet web that narrows into a tunnel retreat where it waits for prey.
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Banana Spider
"Banana spider" is a folk name applied inconsistently across the Americas, but in the southeastern United States it most often refers to the large, golden-silked orb weaver commonly seen spanning gaps between trees along shaded trails.
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Crab Spider
Perched motionless atop a flower petal, often perfectly matched to its color, the crab spider is a patient ambusher that waits for pollinators to land within reach of its outstretched front legs.
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Cellar Spider
A pale, long-legged spider that builds loose, irregular webs in dark corners and is famous for rapidly vibrating in its web when disturbed, causing it to blur into an indistinct shape.
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House Spider
A small, round-bodied brown spider with mottled markings that spins tangled, irregular cobwebs in quiet corners, ceilings, and undisturbed indoor spaces.
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Milkweed Bug
A bold orange-and-black true bug that clusters conspicuously on milkweed seed pods, its warning colours advertising the plant toxins it safely stores from its host.
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Stink Bug
A broad, shield-shaped true bug that releases a pungent defensive odor when handled or crushed, commonly found on garden vegetables and fruit trees.
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Ripple Bug
A tiny, dark true bug that skates across the surface film of calm water, producing the faint ripples that give it its common name as it hunts for small prey trapped at the surface.
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Bagrada Bug
A tiny, orange-and-black stink bug with an intricate mottled pattern, notable as a small-bodied specialist pest of cabbage-family plants in warm, dry climates.
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Harlequin Bug
A shield-shaped stink bug painted in bold black-and-orange (or red-and-yellow) blotches, making it one of the most colorful and easily recognized true bugs on cabbage and other cole crops.
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Chinch Bug
A tiny black-and-white true bug that feeds on grasses, often overlooked individually but capable of forming dense colonies in sunny, dry patches of lawn.
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Squash Bug
A flat-backed, brownish-gray true bug commonly found clustered on the leaves and stems of squash and pumpkin plants, where it feeds by piercing plant tissue.
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Assassin Bug
A slender, long-legged predatory true bug with a curved, needle-like beak used to ambush and pierce other insects, often patterned in bold orange, black, or red warning colors.
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Bed Bug
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless insect shaped like an apple seed that hides in mattress seams and bed frames by day and emerges at night to feed.
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Pill Bug
A gray, segmented, armor-plated crustacean that curls into a tight ball when disturbed, commonly found under rocks, logs, and damp garden debris.
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