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.
Long-Legged Fly
A jewel-bright little fly that flashes metallic green, blue, or bronze in the sunlight as it darts across leaves on comically long, stilt-like legs, pausing to perform quick territorial displays. Both adults and larvae are active hunters of even smaller insects, making this tiny fly a useful predator in gardens and wetlands alike.
fly
Green Bottle Fly
A brilliantly iridescent, metallic green fly frequently seen basking on sunny surfaces outdoors, easily recognized by its shining emerald body and quick, buzzing flight.
fly
Flat Rock Scorpion
An extraordinarily flattened, long-tailed scorpion that squeezes into paper-thin rock crevices, among the largest scorpions in the world by length.
arachnid
Flat-backed Millipede
A slow, armor-plated decomposer whose body segments flare into flat, wing-like keels, giving it a distinctly ribbed, tank-like silhouette compared to rounder millipedes.
myriapod
Psyllid
A tiny, sap-sucking hopper that resembles a miniature cicada and springs away in a blur when its host leaf is disturbed.
true-bug
Common Housefly
A dull gray fly with four dark stripes on its thorax and large reddish eyes, one of the most widespread insects on Earth thanks to its close association with human food and waste.
fly
Hoverfly
A slender, bee- or wasp-patterned fly known for its remarkable ability to hover motionless in midair before darting suddenly to a new flower.
fly
Aphid
A tiny, soft-bodied, pear-shaped insect that clusters in dense colonies on plant stems and leaf undersides, feeding on sap through needle-like mouthparts and often coated in sweet honeydew.
true-bug
Maggot
A pale, legless, tapering grub that wriggles through rotting food and organic waste, the larval stage of a fly.
caterpillar-larva
Ichneumon Wasp
A slender, long-antennaed parasitoid wasp, often mistaken for a giant mosquito or a stinging insect, that is best known for the extraordinarily long ovipositor some species use to drill into wood and lay eggs on hidden larvae.
wasp
Gall Midge
A delicate, mosquito-like fly whose larvae trigger plants to grow strange, often colorful swellings called galls, each species usually tied to one particular host plant.
fly
Cicada
A stout, big-eyed insect best known for the loud, buzzing chorus of song produced by males, and for periodical species that emerge from the ground by the millions after living underground for over a decade.
true-bug
Caddisfly Larva
A soft-bodied aquatic larva famous for building a portable protective case from sand, gravel, or plant debris bound together with silk.
aquatic-insect
Spotted Wing Drosophila
A tiny reddish-brown fruit fly, each male marked with a single dark spot near the wingtip, notable for laying eggs in ripening rather than overripe fruit.
fly
Sand Wasp
A fast, sun-loving solitary wasp with large green or grayish eyes and yellow-striped markings that digs burrows in loose sand and provisions them almost entirely with flies.
wasp
Gnat
A catch-all common name for a wide range of tiny, delicate flies, some no bigger than a grain of pepper, often seen hovering in small clouds near water, moist soil, or overripe produce.
fly
Non-Biting Midge
A mosquito look-alike that gathers by the thousands in swirling mating swarms near lakes and ponds, despite lacking any ability to bite.
fly
No-See-Um
A speck-sized fly so tiny it seems to vanish from sight, yet capable of swarming exposed skin near beaches and marshes at dawn and dusk.
fly
Rat-Tailed Maggot
Named for its long, thin, telescoping breathing tube, the rat-tailed maggot is the aquatic larva of the drone fly, thriving in stagnant, low-oxygen water where few other insects can survive.
aquatic-insect
Bed Bug
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless insect shaped like an apple seed that hides in mattress seams and bed frames by day and emerges at night to feed.
true-bug
Fungus Gnat
A small, dark, mosquito-like fly with long legs and delicate smoky wings, often seen weakly fluttering around houseplants or crawling across damp potting soil.
fly
Midge
A slender, mosquito-like fly that forms dense swarms near water at dusk, easily mistaken for a mosquito but lacking any biting mouthparts.
fly
Punkie
An almost invisibly small biting fly that swarms near wetlands at dusk, where only the females take blood meals from animal hosts.
fly
Root Maggot
A small, legless white grub that lives hidden in the soil, tunneling into the roots of cabbage-family vegetables where it feeds unseen.
fly