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.
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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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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Brown Widow Spider
Named for its mottled tan-and-brown coloring rather than glossy black, the brown widow is easily recognized by its distinctive spiky, off-white egg sacs and an orange hourglass on its underside.
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Bold Jumping Spider
A stocky, fuzzy black spider with iridescent green or blue mouthparts and a bold white or orange spot on its abdomen, the bold jumper is known for its excellent eyesight, curious behavior, and ability to leap many times its own body length.
spiderBird-dropping Spider
A lumpy, white-and-brown orb-weaver that spends its days motionless on a leaf, looking uncannily like a fresh splash of bird droppings.
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Black Widow Spider
A glossy black, globe-bodied spider best known for the red or orange hourglass marking on the underside of the female's rounded abdomen, usually found tucked in a tangled web near ground level.
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Banded Garden Spider
A large orb weaver with a silvery, banded abdomen striped in yellow and black, spinning a distinctive zigzag stabilimentum through the center of its web.
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Regal Jumping Spider
One of the largest and most striking North American jumping spiders, with a velvety black body, bold markings, and huge iridescent green or blue-lined eyes.
spiderFunnel Weaver Spider
Nearly invisible until dew or morning frost outlines it in silver, the funnel weaver's sheet-and-tunnel web is a familiar sight across lawns and gardens, with its owner watching from the safety of a silken tube.
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Yellow Garden Spider
Bold black and yellow markings, a large orb web anchored with a bright zigzag of silk, and a habit of sitting in plain view make the yellow garden spider one of the most eye-catching and recognizable spiders in North American backyards.
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Spiny Orb Weaver
A small, hard-shelled orb weaver shaped like a tiny crab, with six sharp spines projecting from a brightly colored abdomen suspended in a neat wheel-shaped web.
spiderSmall Tortoiseshell
A vivid orange-red European garden butterfly patterned with black and yellow blocks and a border of blue crescents, one of the most familiar and widely recognized butterflies across its range.
butterfly
Cross Orbweaver
Named for the pale cross of dots marking its rounded abdomen, the cross orbweaver spins one of the most classic wheel-shaped webs, rebuilding it fresh nearly every night to keep its silk sticky and effective.
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Marbled Orbweaver
A round-bodied orb weaver with a swollen, marbled orange-and-purple abdomen that builds large, symmetrical webs in damp woodland edges.
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Blue Orchard Bee
A small, metallic blue-black solitary bee widely valued as an efficient early-spring pollinator of fruit trees, nesting in narrow tunnels and hollow stems rather than building hives.
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Long-jawed Orb Weaver
A slender, stick-like spider with oversized jaws that stretches its legs flat along a stem or spins a loose orb web low over water.
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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.
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Golden Silk Orb Weaver
Suspended in a massive, glinting web strung between trees along a forest trail, the golden silk orb weaver is one of the largest and most striking web-building spiders in the Americas, spinning silk with a distinctive yellow-gold sheen.
spider
Daddy Longlegs
A small, oval-bodied arachnid carried on extremely long, thread-like legs, distinct from true spiders in having a one-piece fused body and no silk glands or web.
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.
spiderCamel Cricket
A wingless, humpbacked cricket with unusually long legs that gives it a spider-like appearance, often startling people when it turns up in damp basements or crawl spaces.
grasshopper-cricketGnat
A catch-all common name for a wide range of tiny, delicate flies, some no bigger than a grain of pepper, often seen hovering in small clouds near water, moist soil, or overripe produce.
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Cabbage White Butterfly
A small, plain white butterfly with one or two black spots on each forewing and dark wingtips, one of the most common and widespread garden butterflies in the world.
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Emperor Moth
A striking silk moth with a large eyespot on each of its four wings, showing pronounced differences between the smaller, orange-brown, day-flying males and the larger, greyer, night-flying females.
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