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.
Whitefringed Beetle
A stout gray-brown weevil named for the pale, fringe-like stripe along the outer edge of its wing covers, whose root-feeding larvae are a recognized issue in pastures and row crops.
beetle
Root Maggot
A small, legless white grub that lives hidden in the soil, tunneling into the roots of cabbage-family vegetables where it feeds unseen.
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Monarch Caterpillar
A boldly banded caterpillar in white, yellow, and black stripes, unmistakable as it munches its way through milkweed leaves before transforming into North America's most famous migratory butterfly.
caterpillar-larva
Bess Beetle
A large, glossy jet-black beetle that lives in family groups inside rotting logs, communicating with fellow beetles through squeaks and cooperating to raise larvae, an unusually social lifestyle for an insect of its kind.
beetle
Tomato Hornworm
A large, thick green caterpillar with diagonal white stripes and a distinctive curved horn at its tail end, often found stripping leaves from tomato plants in gardens.
caterpillar-larva
Tussock Moth
A moth with a striking split lifestyle: winged, drab gray-brown males fly to seek out flightless, grub-like females, while the ornate caterpillars sport dense tufts of colorful bristly hair.
moth
Cabbage White Caterpillar
A velvety, bright green caterpillar with a faint yellow stripe down its back, the larval stage of the common white butterfly seen fluttering around vegetable gardens.
caterpillar-larva
Metallic Wood-boring Beetle
The North American common name for jewel beetles, emphasizing the wood-tunneling habits of their larvae, which leave telltale flattened, D-shaped exit holes in bark of stressed or dying trees.
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Cottonwood Borer
A large, boldly patterned longhorn beetle in black and chalky white checkerboard markings, often found clinging to the trunks of cottonwood and poplar trees near its larvae's root tunnels.
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Bagworm Moth
A moth best known for its larva's habit of constructing and living inside a spindle-shaped case of silk and plant debris that hangs from twigs, with adult males a plain sooty-winged moth and females remaining wingless and grub-like inside the bag for life.
moth
Black Vine Weevil
A flightless, all-black snout beetle notorious for notching the edges of leaves at night while its underground larvae feed on plant roots and crowns.
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Old House Borer
A grayish-brown to nearly black longhorn beetle whose larvae bore extensively through structural softwood, capable of causing large galleries hidden beneath the wood surface.
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Two-Spotted Stink Bug
A boldly patterned black-and-orange predatory stink bug named for the pair of dark spots on its back, best known for hunting Colorado potato beetle larvae in gardens and fields.
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Ailanthus Silkmoth (Cynthia Moth)
A very large silkmoth with broad, tan-brown wings crossed by white, crescent-moon-shaped bands, closely associated with the fast-spreading tree-of-heaven that both feeds its larvae and carried the species around the world.
moth
Milkweed Tussock Caterpillar
Rows of dense orange, black, and white hair tufts run down the back of this milkweed specialist, whose young larvae feed in tight groups that skeletonize milkweed leaves before dispersing to feed alone.
caterpillar-larva
Rootworm
Working unseen below ground, rootworm larvae chew tunnels through the root systems of corn and other crops, the underground counterpart to the small, often striped or spotted beetles seen on leaves and flowers above.
beetle
Tachinid Fly
A bristly, house-fly-like insect that looks unremarkable at a glance but hides one of the most important ecological roles among flies: its larvae develop as internal parasites of caterpillars, beetles, and other insects, quietly regulating populations across the landscape. Gardeners often welcome tachinid flies as natural allies against crop-damaging pests.
fly
Onion Fly
A slender gray fly closely related to houseflies whose white legless larvae bore into onion bulbs, feeding in clusters within a single rotting bulb.
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Black Soldier Fly
A sleek, dark, wasp-like fly whose larvae are voracious decomposers of decaying organic material, while the short-lived adults do not feed at all.
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Asian Lady Beetle
A highly variable orange-to-red ladybird beetle, often bearing many black spots or none at all, famous for swarming into homes in large numbers during autumn.
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Mexican Bean Beetle
A copper-colored, spotted beetle resembling an overgrown ladybird that feeds on bean plant leaves along with its spiny yellow larvae.
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Emerald Ash Borer
A slender, bullet-shaped beetle with brilliant metallic-green coloring, whose bark-tunneling larvae feed almost exclusively within ash trees.
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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.
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Flower Chafer Beetle
Often clad in brilliant metallic greens, golds, and bronzes, flower chafers are day-flying scarab beetles that feed on flowers. Many buzz loudly in flight and keep their wing covers closed as they take off.
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