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.
Jorō Spider
A large, strikingly colored East Asian orb weaver with yellow-and-blue-gray banding, now spreading rapidly across the southeastern United States and building enormous golden webs.
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Garden Spider
A large, strikingly patterned orb weaver with a black-and-yellow abdomen and a bold zigzag band of silk woven into the center of its web, making it one of the most recognizable garden spiders.
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Fishing Spider
One of the largest spiders in North America, the fishing spider can walk on water, dive beneath the surface to escape danger, and ambush small fish and tadpoles with its front legs from the water's edge.
spiderCamel Spider
A fast-running desert arachnid, neither a true spider nor scorpion, with enormous jaw-like chelicerae and a reputation exaggerated far beyond its actual behavior.
arachnid
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.
spiderWall 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.
spiderSun 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.
arachnidPurseweb 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.
spiderHouse 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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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.
spiderCave 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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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.
spiderCobweb 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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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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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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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.
beetleRed Paper Wasp
A large, rusty-red paper wasp that builds open, umbrella-shaped nests under eaves and in sheltered structures, often seen hovering near its comb.
wasp
Red-spotted Purple
A large, iridescent blue-black butterfly lacking tails, notable for closely mimicking the unpalatable Pipevine Swallowtail, with rows of red-orange spots visible along the underside wing margins.
butterflyAnt-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.
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Red-legged Grasshopper
One of the most abundant and widespread grasshoppers in North America, the red-legged grasshopper is easily spotted by its reddish hind shins flashing amid a brown, mottled body.
grasshopper-cricket
Red-Shouldered Bug
A dark, flattened true bug with a bright red-orange collar across its shoulders, often seen clustering beneath goldenrain trees and other soapberry-family hosts.
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Red Wood Ant
A large woodland ant with a reddish-brown thorax and dark abdomen, famous for building towering dome-shaped mounds of pine needles and twigs in forest clearings.
antRed Velvet Mite
A plump, brilliant red mite covered in a dense coat of short velvety hairs, often seen emerging onto the soil surface in numbers right after a heavy rain. Its vivid color and unusual size for a mite make it one of the more eye-catching arachnids most people will ever encounter.
arachnidTube Web Spider
A sleek, cylindrical spider that lives inside a silk-lined tube and dashes out to seize insects that stumble across its radiating trip-lines.
spider