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.
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
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
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.
butterflyAntlion
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
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
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.
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Carpenter Bee
A large, robust bee closely resembling a bumblebee but with a shiny, mostly bald black abdomen, known for excavating tunnel nests into bare, untreated wood.
beeSawfly
A wasp relative that never stings, best known for its caterpillar-like larvae that strip leaves from roses, pines, and other garden plants in tidy rows.
waspAsian Longhorned Beetle
A large, glossy black longhorn beetle patterned with irregular white spots and boldly banded blue-white antennae, notable as one of the largest and most eye-catching wood-boring beetles seen in temperate hardwood trees.
beetle
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-bugIchneumon Wasp
A slender, long-antennaed parasitoid wasp, often mistaken for a giant mosquito or a stinging insect, that is best known for the extraordinarily long ovipositor some species use to drill into wood and lay eggs on hidden larvae.
wasp
Carpet Beetle
A tiny, rounded beetle with a mottled scale pattern of white, brown, and yellow, whose bristly larvae are known for feeding on wool, fur, and other dried animal fibers indoors.
beetleOwlfly
An acrobatic, dragonfly-mimicking predator instantly given away by its long, clubbed antennae, a feature no true dragonfly ever has.
other
Northern Pearly-eye
A shade-loving brown woodland butterfly with rows of dark, pale-ringed eyespots, more often seen resting on tree trunks in forest gaps than flying in open sun.
butterfly
Mourning Cloak Butterfly
A deep maroon-brown butterfly bordered with a cream-yellow band and a row of iridescent blue spots, unusual among butterflies for overwintering as an adult and being one of the first to appear in early spring.
butterfly
Boll Weevil
A small, grayish-brown snout beetle with a long, curved rostrum, historically famous for its close feeding association with cotton flower buds and bolls.
beetle
Mourning Cloak
A dark, velvety maroon-brown butterfly edged with a ragged cream-yellow border and a row of iridescent blue spots, notable for overwintering as an adult and often being one of the very first butterflies seen flying in early spring.
butterfly
Varied Carpet Beetle
A tiny beetle mottled with white, brown, and yellow scales that, as a fuzzy larva, quietly grazes on natural fibers tucked away in closets and attics.
beetleBush Cricket
Known by its long, thread-like antennae and evening chorus of chirps, this leaf-colored insect spends its life hidden among grass and foliage, often heard far more often than seen.
grasshopper-cricket
Longhorn Beetle
A beetle instantly recognizable by antennae often longer than its own body, ranging from small woodland species to large, dramatically patterned tropical and temperate forms.
beetleIronclad Beetle
A slow-moving, mottled gray beetle famed for having one of the hardest, most crush-resistant exoskeletons of any insect, often found clinging motionless to dead wood or tree bark.
beetlePine Sawyer Beetle
A large, long-antennaed longhorn beetle of pine and spruce forests, mottled gray-brown to black, that produces a rasping sound when handled and whose larvae tunnel deep into dead or dying conifer wood.
beetleLonghorn Bee
A fuzzy, medium-sized solitary bee named for the males' notably long, curved antennae, commonly seen foraging on sunflowers, asters, and other late-summer composite flowers.
bee
Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
An invasive, mottled brown stink bug identified by alternating light and dark bands on its antennae and abdomen edges, well known for gathering in large numbers on and inside buildings each fall.
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