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.
Black Garden Ant
A familiar small, glossy black ant that forms visible foraging trails across patios and garden paths and nests beneath stones, pavers, and lawns.
ant
Fire Ant Queen
The reproductive powerhouse of a fire ant colony, noticeably larger than the reddish worker ants and equipped with wings before she sheds them to found a new nest.
ant
Odorous House Ant
A dark, unassuming ant best known for releasing a smell reminiscent of rotten coconut when a worker is crushed.
ant
Antlion
An insect best known for its larval stage, the doodlebug, which digs a small conical pit trap in loose sand to ambush unwary ants, while the winged adult resembles a slender, delicate damselfly.
other
Lily Leaf Beetle
A brilliant scarlet-red beetle with a jet-black head, legs, and underside that feeds almost exclusively on true lilies and fritillaries, often stripping leaves down to bare stems.
beetle
Termite
A pale, soft-bodied social insect that lives in hidden colonies and feeds on cellulose in wood and plant debris, often mistaken for an ant despite belonging to an entirely different insect order.
other
Antheraea Silkmoth
A large, robust silkmoth in the genus Antheraea with broad reddish-brown to tan wings, each marked with a prominent transparent, eye-like spot, representing a group of giant moths long valued for producing wild silk.
moth
Broad-Headed Bug
A slender, dark true bug with a notably wide head, whose nymphs are remarkable ant mimics that scurry among leaf litter before maturing into fliers that resemble small leaf-footed bugs.
true-bug
Io Moth
A striking yellow (male) or reddish-brown (female) silkmoth instantly recognizable by the large, dark eyespot ringed in blue and black on each hindwing, flashed suddenly to startle predators.
moth
Vaporer Moth
A tussock moth with dramatic sexual differences: the male is a small rusty-brown day-flying moth with a white wing spot, while the female is a flightless, wingless gray sac-like insect that never leaves her cocoon.
moth
Lone Star Tick
Named for the single silvery-white spot on the back of the adult female, the lone star tick is unusually active for a tick, moving toward hosts rather than simply waiting for them to pass. Its reddish-brown, ornamented body makes it one of the easier North American ticks to identify at a glance.
arachnid
Vietnamese Walking Stick
A slender tropical stick insect popular in classrooms and terrariums, notable for females that can produce healthy offspring entirely on their own, without ever mating.
mantis-stick
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
Common Blue
A small, sun-loving butterfly whose males flash brilliant violet-blue wings while females wear warm brown with a scattering of orange spots.
butterfly
Punkie
An almost invisibly small biting fly that swarms near wetlands at dusk, where only the females take blood meals from animal hosts.
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
Eastern Pondhawk
A bold, ground-perching dragonfly whose bright green females and powdery blue males look almost like different species, and which readily preys on other dragonflies.
dragonfly
Diana Fritillary
A large southern Appalachian fritillary famous for extreme sexual dimorphism — males are burnt-orange and black while females are an iridescent blue-black that mimics a distasteful swallowtail.
butterfly
Broad-Bodied Chaser
A stout, flat-bodied dragonfly that is often the first to colonise a new garden pond, with males showing a powdery pale blue abdomen and females a warm golden-brown one.
dragonfly
Tarantula Hawk Wasp
A giant metallic-blue wasp with rust-orange wings, the tarantula hawk is one of the largest wasps in the world. Females hunt tarantulas as living food for their single offspring.
wasp
Julia Butterfly
A brilliant, elongated-winged orange butterfly of tropical and subtropical habitats, with males glowing an intense unmarked orange and females showing subtler markings and a hint of black striping.
butterfly
Oriental Cockroach
A dark, matte blackish-brown cockroach with short wings that do not cover the abdomen, especially in females, and a preference for cooler, damper hiding spots than most other common cockroaches.
other
Vapourer Moth
A small tussock moth with striking sexual dimorphism: rusty-orange, day-flying males with feathery antennae contrast with flightless, grub-like grey females that never leave their cocoon to lay eggs.
moth
Bordered Plant Bug
A dark, oval-bodied true bug with a distinct pale margin around its wing edges, often mistaken for a large ant or beetle when its nymphs cluster together in tight groups.
true-bug