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.
Biting Midge
A minuscule, gray-winged fly that gathers in dense swarms near wetlands and can slip through window screens unnoticed.
fly
Robber Fly
A powerfully built, bristly-faced predatory fly that ambushes other flying insects in midair, piercing them with a stout beak-like proboscis.
fly
Mormon Cricket
A hefty, flightless katydid whose swarms can stretch for miles across western rangelands, marching en masse in search of food and mates.
grasshopper-cricket
Punkie
An almost invisibly small biting fly that swarms near wetlands at dusk, where only the females take blood meals from animal hosts.
fly
Greenhead Fly
A stout, strikingly green-eyed horse fly that emerges from Atlantic salt marshes in midsummer swarms, where the females bite to feed on blood.
fly
Blue-eyed Darner
A large, fast-flying darner with brilliant sky-blue eyes that meet in a seam across the top of the head, patrolling ponds and open fields well into the evening.
dragonfly
Lubber Grasshopper
Heavy-bodied and slow-moving, lubber grasshoppers make up for their poor flying ability with large size, bold coloring, and a lumbering, ground-bound lifestyle.
grasshopper-cricket
Spring Azure
One of the earliest-flying small blue butterflies of spring, with soft pale-blue upperwings, a whitish gray underside dotted with faint dark markings, and no tails on the hindwing.
butterfly
Rose Chafer
A slender, tan, long-legged scarab beetle that gathers in swarms on rose blossoms and other flowers in late spring, chewing petals and foliage into a lacy, skeletonized pattern.
beetle
Emperor Dragonfly
One of Europe's largest and most powerful dragonflies, a fast, high-flying hunter with a bright sky-blue abdomen in males and a commanding, tireless patrol over open water.
dragonfly
Zebra Longwing
A slow-flying, long-winged black butterfly striped boldly with yellow, unusual among butterflies for feeding on pollen as an adult, which extends its lifespan to several months.
butterfly
Giant Mayfly
Known for emerging by the billions in summer swarms so dense they can show up on weather radar, the Giant Mayfly is one of the largest and most abundant mayflies in North America.
aquatic-insect
Fruit Fly
A tiny tan fly with prominent red eyes that swarms around overripe fruit, wine, and vinegar, appearing seemingly out of nowhere thanks to an extremely fast life cycle.
fly
Hummingbird Moth
Hovering at flowers with a blur of wings and a long uncoiling tongue, the hummingbird moth is easily mistaken for a tiny hummingbird. These plump, fast-flying hawk moths feed on nectar in broad daylight.
moth
Northern Pearly-eye
A shade-loving brown woodland butterfly with rows of dark, pale-ringed eyespots, more often seen resting on tree trunks in forest gaps than flying in open sun.
butterfly
Gypsy Cutworm Moth
A plain, mottled grey-brown night-flying moth whose stout, soil-dwelling larvae are known as cutworms for their habit of severing young plant stems near ground level.
moth
Mayfly
A delicate insect with upright, sail-like wings and long, thread-thin tail filaments, famous for emerging by the millions in brief, synchronized swarms before dying within a day or two.
aquatic-insect
Sphinx Moth
A large, streamlined, fast-flying moth with narrow triangular wings and a robust, tapering body, famous for hovering at flowers at dusk like a hummingbird.
moth
Firefly
A soft-bodied, dusk-flying beetle famous for the bioluminescent flashes it produces from its abdomen to attract mates on warm summer evenings.
beetle
Bumblebee Moth
A fuzzy, day-flying sphinx moth that hovers at flowers like a bee, with mostly clear wings and a black-and-yellow banded body that mimics a bumblebee.
moth
Flower Chafer Beetle
Often clad in brilliant metallic greens, golds, and bronzes, flower chafers are day-flying scarab beetles that feed on flowers. Many buzz loudly in flight and keep their wing covers closed as they take off.
beetle
Red Admiral
A fast-flying, strikingly patterned butterfly with velvety black wings crossed by a bold orange-red band and white-spotted tips, often seen basking on tree trunks or sipping from fallen fruit.
butterfly
Desert Locust
A large, powerful grasshopper capable of forming some of the most extensive and historically devastating insect swarms on Earth, transforming from a solitary desert dweller into a densely packed migrating horde under the right conditions.
grasshopper-cricket
Winter Moth
A small tan-brown moth unusual for flying in the cold of late autumn and early winter, with strongly dimorphic sexes: fully winged males and flightless, near-wingless females that climb tree trunks to lay eggs.
moth