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.
Webbing Clothes Moth
A small, plain golden-buff moth that avoids light and flutters weakly from dark closets, leaving silken webbing where its larvae have grazed on wool and fur.
moth
Diving Beetle Larva (Water Tiger)
Nicknamed the water tiger, the larva of a predaceous diving beetle is an elongated, sickle-jawed hunter that stalks the shallows and seizes prey many times its own size.
beetle
Mayfly Nymph
A short-lived aquatic grazer with feathery gills along its abdomen, living for months underwater before a brief, spectacular mass emergence as a winged adult.
aquatic-insect
Chinese Mantis
One of the largest praying mantises found in North America, an introduced species with a lean brown-and-green body and grasping spined forelegs built for ambushing insect prey.
mantis-stick
Lubber Grasshopper
Heavy-bodied and slow-moving, lubber grasshoppers make up for their poor flying ability with large size, bold coloring, and a lumbering, ground-bound lifestyle.
grasshopper-cricket
Two-striped Grasshopper
Easily spotted by the pair of pale cream stripes running the length of its body, the two-striped grasshopper is one of the largest and most economically important grasshoppers in North America.
grasshopper-cricket
Spur-throated Grasshopper
One of the most familiar grasshopper groups in North America, named for the small spine on its throat and known for including some of the continent's most abundant rangeland species.
grasshopper-cricket
Dung Fly
A hairy, often golden-hued fly commonly seen perched on fresh manure in pastures, where it hunts smaller insects as an adult while its larvae develop within the dung itself.
fly
Water Beetle
A smooth, dark, oval-bodied beetle adapted for swimming, commonly found paddling through ponds and marshes and periodically surfacing to renew a carried air supply.
aquatic-insect
Dance Fly
A slender, long-legged predatory fly named for the swarming courtship dances males perform at dusk, often while carrying a captured insect as an offering.
fly
Flesh Fly
A bristly gray fly marked with three dark thoracic stripes and a checkerboard-patterned abdomen, often spotted hovering near carrion or garbage.
fly
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.
bee
Bark Beetle
A tiny, cylindrical, dark-bodied beetle that tunnels beneath tree bark, leaving distinctive branching gallery patterns as the clearest sign of its presence.
beetle
Bumblebee
A large, round, densely furry bee with bold black-and-yellow banding, known for its loud, low-pitched buzz and its ability to fly and forage in cooler temperatures than most other bees.
bee
Fruit Fly
A tiny tan fly with prominent red eyes that swarms around overripe fruit, wine, and vinegar, appearing seemingly out of nowhere thanks to an extremely fast life cycle.
fly
Checkered White
A white butterfly patterned with irregular gray-black checkered spots, commonly fluttering low over open, sunny, weedy fields across much of North America.
butterfly
Red Flour Beetle
A tiny, flattened, rust-red beetle found in stored flour and grain worldwide, capable of flight and closely resembling the confused flour beetle apart from the shape of its antennal club.
beetle
Fig Beetle
A large, dull metallic-green scarab beetle with a loud, buzzing flight, often seen crash-landing near ripe or overripe fruit and compost piles on warm summer days.
beetle
Spotted Cucumber Beetle
A small, elongated yellow-green beetle marked with twelve black spots across its wing covers, commonly seen on cucurbit and corn plants throughout the growing season.
beetle
Squash Beetle
A large, coppery-orange, spotted beetle that resembles an oversized ladybird but, unlike most of its relatives, feeds on squash and pumpkin leaves rather than aphids.
beetle
Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly
With a metallic emerald body and wings of solid inky black, the ebony jewelwing flutters like a delicate butterfly along shaded forest streams rather than darting like most other damselflies.
dragonfly
Water Scavenger Beetle
Rounded and glossy, water scavenger beetles paddle through weedy ponds gathering air with a short antenna rather than a snorkel-like tube, feeding mostly on decaying plant matter and algae.
beetle
Fishfly Larva
A flattened, armor-plated predator of stream bottoms, the fishfly larva spends one to three years underwater seizing prey with sickle-shaped jaws before briefly taking wing as a short-lived winged adult.
aquatic-insect
Meadow Katydid
Small, slender, and beautifully camouflaged among grass blades, meadow katydids fill open fields and marsh edges with a soft, buzzy, insect-like ticking that blends into the summer evening background.
grasshopper-cricket