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.
Potter Wasp
A solitary wasp with a pronounced hourglass waist that sculpts tiny, perfectly rounded mud pots resembling miniature clay jugs, each one stocked with paralyzed caterpillars for a single offspring.
waspBird Mite
A minute, pale to reddish mite that lives among feathers and nesting material of wild and domestic birds, sometimes dispersing into nearby buildings when nests are abandoned.
arachnidNon-Biting Midge Larva (Bloodworm)
Wriggling through soft bottom mud in dense colonies, the bloodworm gets its striking red color from a specialized blood pigment that lets it survive in oxygen-poor water where few other insects can.
aquatic-insect
Argentine Ant
A small, uniformly light-brown ant that forms enormous, cooperative supercolonies stretching across entire regions rather than defending small individual nests.
ant
Garden Spider
A large, strikingly patterned orb weaver with a black-and-yellow abdomen and a bold zigzag band of silk woven into the center of its web, making it one of the most recognizable garden spiders.
spider
Hornet
A large, robust social wasp with a reddish-brown and yellow patterned body, notably bigger than yellowjackets, building enclosed papery nests often high in tree cavities or wall voids.
waspRed Paper Wasp
A large, rusty-red paper wasp that builds open, umbrella-shaped nests under eaves and in sheltered structures, often seen hovering near its comb.
wasp
Formosan Subterranean Termite
A pale, aggressive subterranean termite native to East Asia that builds enormous colonies and can construct large above-ground carton nests in trees, walls, and structures.
otherDampwood Termite
A relatively large termite that nests directly inside heavily moistened, decaying wood such as rotting logs and stumps, needing no soil contact but requiring consistently damp timber.
otherField Ant
A large, common outdoor ant that builds conspicuous mound nests of soil and plant debris in sunny open ground and defends itself by spraying formic acid rather than stinging.
ant
Cuckoo Bee
A slender, wasp-like bee that lacks pollen-carrying hairs because it never gathers its own pollen, instead sneaking into the nests of other solitary bees to lay eggs that hatch and consume the host's food stores.
bee
Leafcutter Bee
A stout, dark-bodied bee best known not for how it looks but for the neat, circular or oval notches it cuts from leaves, which it uses to line and seal its nest cells.
beeHarvester Ant
A large, industrious desert ant that clears a bare, sunburned disk of ground around its nest entrance while collecting and storing seeds by the thousands.
ant
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.
antPine Processionary Moth
An unremarkable grey-brown moth known almost entirely through its larvae, which build large silken nests in pine trees and travel to feed in long, head-to-tail processions covered in fine defensive hairs.
mothFire 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.
antArmy Ant
A nomadic predator that never builds a permanent nest, instead forming temporary living bivouacs from its own linked bodies and sweeping through the forest floor in massive predatory raids.
antWeaver Ant
A tree-dwelling ant that builds its nest by stitching living leaves together with silk produced by its own larvae, forming elaborate arboreal colonies defended fiercely by its workers.
ant
Milkweed Bug (Large Milkweed Bug)
A boldly patterned orange-and-black true bug found clustering on milkweed seed pods, sporting an elongated body with a distinctive black band across the wings.
true-bug
Fiery Skipper
A small, fast, orange-and-black skipper often seen zipping low over lawns and gardens, with jagged black wing borders that resemble scorched edges.
butterfly
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
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.
beetle
Painted Lady
One of the most widely distributed butterflies on Earth, recognized by its orange-and-black mosaic wings with white-spotted black tips and its habit of long-distance migration across continents.
butterfly
Cinnabar Moth
A striking black-and-red day-flying moth whose boldly banded orange-and-black caterpillars feed conspicuously on ragwort, sequestering plant compounds as a chemical defense advertised by their vivid warning colors.
moth