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.
Crab Spider
Perched motionless atop a flower petal, often perfectly matched to its color, the crab spider is a patient ambusher that waits for pollinators to land within reach of its outstretched front legs.
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House Spider
A small, round-bodied brown spider with mottled markings that spins tangled, irregular cobwebs in quiet corners, ceilings, and undisturbed indoor spaces.
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Brown Widow Spider
Named for its mottled tan-and-brown coloring rather than glossy black, the brown widow is easily recognized by its distinctive spiky, off-white egg sacs and an orange hourglass on its underside.
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Bold Jumping Spider
A stocky, fuzzy black spider with iridescent green or blue mouthparts and a bold white or orange spot on its abdomen, the bold jumper is known for its excellent eyesight, curious behavior, and ability to leap many times its own body length.
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Diving Bell Spider
The world's only truly aquatic spider, famous for spinning an underwater silk bell that it fills with air, allowing it to live, hunt, and breed almost entirely submerged.
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Bird-dropping Spider
A lumpy, white-and-brown orb-weaver that spends its days motionless on a leaf, looking uncannily like a fresh splash of bird droppings.
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Ant-mimic Spider
A slender jumping spider that walks on six legs while waving the front pair like antennae, convincingly passing itself off as an ant to fool predators and prey alike.
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Ogre-faced Spider
A twig-like nocturnal spider with enormous, light-gathering eyes that weaves a small rectangular net and hurls it over passing prey in a lightning-fast ambush.
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Comb-footed Spider
A diverse family of spiders defined by a row of tiny serrated bristles on their hind legs, used like a comb to fling silk over prey and wrap it up in an instant.
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Zebra Jumping Spider
A compact black-and-white striped jumping spider that stalks prey in short, precise leaps across sun-warmed walls and fences.
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Regal Jumping Spider
One of the largest and most striking North American jumping spiders, with a velvety black body, bold markings, and huge iridescent green or blue-lined eyes.
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Brown Recluse Spider
A uniformly light-brown spider with a faint violin-shaped marking on its back and only six eyes instead of the usual eight, typically found hiding in dry, undisturbed indoor and outdoor spaces.
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Six-eyed Sand Spider
A flattened, sand-colored spider that buries itself just beneath the desert surface, ambushing prey while remaining almost invisible against the dunes.
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Two-Spotted Spider Mite
A near-microscopic mite that spins fine silk webbing over leaves as it feeds, leaving foliage stippled and pale.
arachnid
Long-jawed Orb Weaver
A slender, stick-like spider with oversized jaws that stretches its legs flat along a stem or spins a loose orb web low over water.
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Golden Silk Orb Weaver
Suspended in a massive, glinting web strung between trees along a forest trail, the golden silk orb weaver is one of the largest and most striking web-building spiders in the Americas, spinning silk with a distinctive yellow-gold sheen.
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Cross Orbweaver
Named for the pale cross of dots marking its rounded abdomen, the cross orbweaver spins one of the most classic wheel-shaped webs, rebuilding it fresh nearly every night to keep its silk sticky and effective.
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Marbled Orbweaver
A round-bodied orb weaver with a swollen, marbled orange-and-purple abdomen that builds large, symmetrical webs in damp woodland edges.
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Spiny Orb Weaver
A small, hard-shelled orb weaver shaped like a tiny crab, with six sharp spines projecting from a brightly colored abdomen suspended in a neat wheel-shaped web.
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Western Black Widow
A glossy, jet-black spider with a bold red hourglass mark on the underside of her round abdomen, the western black widow builds a tangled, irregular web in dark, undisturbed corners of the American West.
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Daddy Longlegs
A small, oval-bodied arachnid carried on extremely long, thread-like legs, distinct from true spiders in having a one-piece fused body and no silk glands or web.
arachnid
Southern Black Widow
Glossy jet-black and marked with a bright red hourglass on the underside of its rounded abdomen, the southern black widow is one of the most recognizable spiders in North America, typically found tucked into quiet, undisturbed corners rather than out in the open.
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Tarantula
The tarantula is the heavyweight of the spider world, a densely furred, ground-hugging hunter that spends most of its long life waiting in a silk-lined burrow for prey to wander past.
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Wolf Spiderling
A tiny, fast-moving juvenile wolf spider, often seen riding in dozens on its mother's back before dispersing to hunt on its own across open ground.
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