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.
Screech Beetle
This small, oval water beetle earns its name from the loud squeak it produces when picked up, a sound made by rubbing internal body parts together rather than by any vocal organ.
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Flour Beetle
A tiny, shiny reddish-brown beetle that infests flour, cereal, and other dry stored foods, often found in dense clustered populations.
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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.
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Click Beetle
An elongated, streamlined beetle famous for the audible clicking snap it makes to flip itself upright when placed on its back, a spring-loaded escape mechanism unique to this family.
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Titan Beetle
One of the largest insects on Earth, the titan beetle is a colossal longhorn from the Amazon whose body can exceed 16 cm. Its powerful jaws and loud hiss make it an imposing rainforest giant.
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Scarab Beetle
A broad, often glossy beetle family recognized by its distinctive fan-like clubbed antennae, ranging from tiny dung-rollers to massive horned giants, found on every continent except Antarctica.
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Locust Borer
A slender black longhorn beetle boldly striped with yellow, closely resembling a wasp, commonly seen visiting goldenrod flowers in autumn near black locust trees.
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.
beetleTortoise Beetle
A small, flat, disc-shaped beetle whose expanded wing covers and pronotum hide its head and legs almost entirely, giving it the look of a miniature turtle shell crawling across a leaf.
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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.
beetleRiffle Beetle
Tiny and unassuming, riffle beetles cling tightly to submerged rocks in swift, clean streams for their entire lives, making them one of the most reliable living indicators of healthy water.
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Diving Beetle
A smooth, streamlined, dark-bodied beetle with broad, fringed hind legs built for swimming, an active underwater predator that carries its own air supply beneath its wing covers.
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Green June Beetle
A large, velvety green scarab beetle with bronze edges that flies with a loud buzzing drone on warm summer days, often seen around ripening fruit.
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Palo Verde Beetle
One of the largest beetles in North America, a heavy, dark reddish-brown longhorn beetle with long spiny antennae and a loud, buzzing flight that emerges from the desert soil around palo verde and mesquite trees in summer.
beetleGlowworm Beetle
A beetle whose females remain larva-like and glowing for their entire lives, producing rows of soft greenish light along their segmented, worm-like bodies, while males develop into small, feathery-antennaed flying beetles.
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Firefly Beetle
A soft-bodied, dark beetle famous for producing rhythmic flashes of light from its abdomen at dusk, using bioluminescence to attract mates on warm summer evenings.
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Hercules Beetle
One of the largest beetles in the world, with males bearing dramatic, forceps-like horns nearly as long as the rest of their armored, olive-green body.
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Deathwatch Beetle
A small, mottled brown wood-boring beetle famous for the faint ticking sound it makes by tapping its head against wood, historically associated with old timber-framed buildings.
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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.
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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.
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Japanese Beetle
A small, iridescent beetle with a metallic green head and thorax and coppery-bronze wing covers, notorious for skeletonizing the leaves of roses, grapevines, and hundreds of other garden plants.
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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.
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Great Diving Beetle
One of Europe's largest water beetles, the great diving beetle is a streamlined, olive-brown predator that rows through ponds on fringed hind legs, surfacing periodically to trap a bubble of air beneath its wing covers.
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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.
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