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.
Recluse Spider
A pale, unassuming spider recognized by its dark violin-shaped marking and unusual six-eyed arrangement, spending most of its time hidden in quiet, undisturbed corners.
spider
Ground Spider
A dark, fast-moving nocturnal hunter that patrols the ground surface at night, easily recognized by its distinctive pair of forward-projecting silk spinnerets.
spider
Portia Spider
A small jumping spider with an outsized reputation for intelligence, famous for stalking and outwitting other spiders using deceptive tactics and apparent problem-solving.
spider
Sac Spider
A pale, uniformly colored spider that spins a small silk sac retreat rather than a capture web, often found tucked into rolled leaves or corners of rooms.
spider
Money Spider
A tiny sheet-weaving spider, often seen drifting through the air on silk threads, traditionally said to bring good luck when it lands on you.
spider
Mouse Spider
A stout, glossy burrowing spider named for its supposed mouse-like agility, with males often sporting a strikingly colored head and jaws.
spider
Whip Spider
A flattened, spider-like arachnid with no venom and no silk, using a pair of extremely long, whip-like front legs as sensitive feelers to navigate the dark.
arachnid
Camel 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
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.
spider
Woodlouse Spider
A reddish-brown spider with oversized forward-pointing jaws specialized for piercing the armored shells of woodlice, often found lurking under damp stones and mulch.
spider
Peacock Spider
A tiny Australian jumping spider whose males unfurl a fan of vivid, iridescent colors and perform an elaborate rhythmic dance to court females.
spider
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.
spider
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.
spider
Jumping Spider
A compact, often furry, day-active spider with unusually large forward-facing eyes that give it an alert, curious look, known for stalking prey and pouncing in a sudden leap.
spider
Mud Dauber Wasp
Slender, long-waisted wasps that build distinctive nests from mud, mud daubers stock their cells with paralyzed spiders. Their tube or urn-shaped mud nests are common under eaves and bridges.
wasp
Cicada Killer Wasp
One of the largest wasps in North America, a robust rust-and-black or yellow-marked digger wasp that excavates burrows in bare soil and specializes in hunting cicadas to provision its underground nest.
wasp
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.
spider
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.
arachnid
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.
spider
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.
spider
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.
spider
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.
spider
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.
spider
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.
spider