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.
Snout Beetle
A small beetle instantly recognized by its elongated, downward-curving snout, tipped with chewing mouthparts, used to bore into seeds, nuts, stems, or fruit.
beetle
Rice Weevil
A tiny reddish-brown weevil with a long curved snout and four faint pale spots on its wing covers, commonly found infesting stored rice, wheat, and other grain products.
beetle
Red Wood Ant
A large woodland ant with a reddish-brown thorax and dark abdomen, famous for building towering dome-shaped mounds of pine needles and twigs in forest clearings.
antPurseweb 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.
spiderPhorid Fly
A tiny, hump-backed fly best known for scuttling erratically across countertops and floors rather than taking flight, drawn to anything rotting or moist.
fly
Potato Bug
A rounded, boldly striped beetle in cream and black that feeds on potato and other nightshade foliage, easily recognized by the ten black stripes running down its wing covers.
beetleOgre-faced Spider
A twig-like nocturnal spider with enormous, light-gathering eyes that weaves a small rectangular net and hurls it over passing prey in a lightning-fast ambush.
spider
Orb Weaver Spider
A stout-bodied spider best known for spinning the classic, near-perfect circular "orb" web strung between plants, eaves, or fences, often rebuilt fresh each night.
spider
Meadow Fritillary
A small, fast-flying orange-and-black fritillary of open grassy fields, easily told from its larger cousins by its lack of silvery spots on the underside of the hindwing.
butterflyLonghorn 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
Fragile Forktail
One of North America's smallest and most delicate damselflies, the Fragile Forktail is best known for the pale green exclamation-point mark on top of its thorax.
dragonfly
Great Silver Water Beetle
One of the largest beetles in Europe, the great silver water beetle is a glossy jet-black giant that rows through weedy ponds carrying a silvery film of air trapped beneath its body.
beetle
Flea
A tiny, wingless, laterally flattened insect built for moving swiftly through fur, famous for its powerful hind legs that allow it to leap many times its own body length.
other
Horn Fly
A tiny, dark fly that clusters in dense patches on the backs and shoulders of grazing cattle, using piercing mouthparts to take frequent small blood meals.
flyJune Beetle
A stout, reddish-brown scarab beetle that emerges in late spring and early summer, famous for clumsily bumping into porch lights and window screens at night.
beetle
European Stag Beetle
Europe's largest beetle, a glossy dark brown insect in which males carry oversized antler-like mandibles used to wrestle rivals, resembling the antlers of a stag.
beetle
Fire Ant
A small reddish-brown ant that builds loose, crater-less dirt mounds in sunny open turf and mobilizes large numbers of workers rapidly when the nest is disturbed.
ant
Giant African Millipede
One of the largest millipedes in the world, a slow-moving, cylindrical detritivore covered in hundreds of tiny legs that curls into a tight defensive coil when disturbed.
myriapod
Dogbane Beetle
A small, brilliantly iridescent leaf beetle that shifts between shades of green, gold, blue, and copper depending on the viewing angle, always found on dogbane plants.
beetle
Crazy Ant
A fast-moving, long-legged ant instantly recognizable by its erratic, non-stop scurrying in every direction rather than the orderly trails followed by most other ants.
ant
Common House Mosquito
A slender, drab brown mosquito that emerges at dusk from catch basins and forgotten containers to fill neighborhoods with its familiar high-pitched whine.
flyDust Mite
A microscopic, translucent arachnid that lives unseen in household dust, feeding quietly on shed skin flakes within mattresses, carpets, and furniture.
arachnid
Common Green Darner
A large green-and-blue dragonfly and the official state insect of Washington, best known among dragonfly watchers for an annual migration that spans multiple generations.
dragonfly
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.
arachnid