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.
Drugstore Beetle
A tiny brown beetle with grooved wing covers that once earned its name by burrowing into dried herbs and medicines kept on pharmacy shelves.
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
Chicken Mite
A tiny, blood-feeding mite that hides in cracks and crevices of poultry housing by day and emerges at night to feed on roosting birds, turning a dull gray to deep red after a blood meal.
arachnid
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.
beetle
Periodical Cicada
A black-bodied cicada with striking red eyes and orange-veined wings, famous for emerging in massive, synchronized broods after spending 13 or 17 years developing underground.
true-bug
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.
beetle
Grub Worm
A plump, C-shaped, creamy-white larva with a distinct brown head, living underground where it feeds on grass and plant roots before eventually maturing into a scarab beetle.
beetle
Carrot Rust Fly
A slender, shiny black fly barely a few millimeters long whose slim yellowish larvae tunnel rust-colored trails through carrot and parsnip roots.
fly
White Grub
A pale, C-shaped larva with a brown head capsule and six stubby legs, spending its entire early life hidden underground feeding on roots before emerging as a stout May or June beetle.
beetle
Wireworm
Slender, shiny, and armor-hard, the wireworm is the long-lived soil-dwelling larva of a click beetle, spending years underground feeding on seeds, roots, and tubers before ever taking beetle form.
beetle
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.
fly
Maggot
A pale, legless, tapering grub that wriggles through rotting food and organic waste, the larval stage of a fly.
caterpillar-larva
Bed Bug (Bat Bug)
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless true bug that hides in tight seams and crevices by day and feeds on blood at night, closely related to the bat bug, which occupies a similar niche in bat roosts.
true-bug
Sleepy Orange
A small, deep orange sulphur butterfly with dark wing borders and a low, wandering flight, named for a faint dark mark that suggests a half-closed, sleepy eye.
butterfly
Little Yellow
A tiny, pale lemon-yellow butterfly with a thin, crisp black wing border, fluttering close to the ground in fields and roadsides across the southern and eastern United States.
butterfly
Orange Sulphur
A vivid orange-and-yellow butterfly with sharp black wing borders, one of the most common butterflies over open fields and alfalfa crops throughout North America.
butterfly
Phorid 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
Dampwood 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.
other
Clouded Sulphur
A medium-sized pale yellow butterfly with crisp black wing borders, commonly seen fluttering low over clover fields and roadside meadows across North America.
butterfly
German Yellowjacket
A black-and-yellow social wasp closely resembling the common wasp, distinguished by three black facial dots, that builds large paper nests in wall voids and roof cavities and is widespread in both its native and introduced ranges.
wasp
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
Monarch Butterfly
A large butterfly with bold orange wings crossed by black veins and a black, white-spotted border, famous for its multi-generational migration between North America and central Mexico.
butterfly
Death Watch Beetle
A mottled brown wood-boring beetle famous for the faint ticking sound it taps out inside old timbers, once thought by superstitious listeners to be an omen of death.
beetle
Furniture Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown to dark brown cylindrical beetle whose larvae, commonly called 'woodworm,' bore small round tunnels through seasoned furniture and timber.
beetle