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.
Sod Webworm
A dull, grayish-green caterpillar that hides in silk-lined burrows by day and emerges at night to chew grass blades down to the thatch.
caterpillar-larva
Tube 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
Mesh Web Weaver
A tiny, easily overlooked spider that spins a loose, bluish tangle of fuzzy silk over twig tips and seed heads to snare small insects.
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
Rocky Mountain Wood Tick
A robust, ornately patterned tick of the western mountains that clings to shrubs and grasses waiting to grab a passing mammal.
arachnid
Mosquito Larva
A wriggling, comma-shaped aquatic larva that hangs from the water's surface to breathe before transforming into a flying adult mosquito.
aquatic-insect
Cluster Fly
A sluggish, dark fly covered in fine golden hairs that gathers by the hundreds on sun-warmed walls in autumn before slipping indoors to spend the winter.
fly
Greenhead Fly
A stout, strikingly green-eyed horse fly that emerges from Atlantic salt marshes in midsummer swarms, where the females bite to feed on blood.
fly
Marbled White
A striking checkerboard butterfly with bold black-and-white wing patterning, despite its name it belongs to the brown butterfly family rather than the whites.
butterfly
Vine Weevil
A slow, flightless, matte-black beetle that hides by day and emerges at night to notch neat semicircular bites from the edges of leaves.
beetle
Yellow Scorpion
A robust, sandy-yellow scorpion of arid regions that spends daylight hours buried or hidden beneath stones, emerging at dusk to hunt.
arachnid
Wandering Spider
A large, fast-moving hunter that forages actively at night across leaf litter and low vegetation instead of relying on a web to catch its meals.
spider
Pirate Spider
A stealthy, spider-eating specialist that sneaks onto another spider's web, plucks the silk to mimic trapped prey, and ambushes the unsuspecting owner.
spider
Hoverfly
A slender, bee- or wasp-patterned fly known for its remarkable ability to hover motionless in midair before darting suddenly to a new flower.
fly
Comet Moth (Madagascan Moon Moth)
One of the largest and most spectacular silk moths in the world, with pale yellow-to-red wings and extraordinarily long, ribbon-like tails on the hindwings.
moth
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.
true-bug
Powderpost Beetle
A small, slender reddish-brown to dark brown beetle whose larvae tunnel through seasoned hardwood, reducing it internally to a fine, powdery frass.
beetle
Lesser Water Boatman
A flat-backed, oar-legged true bug that rows through pond water with fringed hind legs, surfacing periodically to trap a silvery bubble of air against its body.
true-bug
Water Penny Beetle
A flattened, coin-shaped larva that clings almost invisibly to the surface of submerged stream rocks, named for its uncanny resemblance to a small penny.
aquatic-insect
Cave Cricket
Humpbacked and wingless with absurdly long legs and antennae, this pale, silent insect thrives in the total darkness of caves, basements, and damp crawl spaces.
grasshopper-cricket
Grizzled Mantis
Mottled in shades of gray and lichen-green, this flattened mantis presses itself against tree bark so convincingly that it seems to melt into the trunk.
mantis-stick
Slaty Skimmer
A mature male Slaty Skimmer is powder-blue-gray from head to tail with jet-black wing tips, giving it a slate-colored, almost monochrome look as it patrols pond edges.
dragonfly
Blue-eyed Darner
A large, fast-flying darner with brilliant sky-blue eyes that meet in a seam across the top of the head, patrolling ponds and open fields well into the evening.
dragonfly
Common Wood-Nymph
A large brown grassland butterfly with a bold yellow patch and one or two prominent black eyespots on the forewing, known for its bouncing, low-to-the-ground flight.
butterfly