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.
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.
flyCrane Fly Larva
Thick-skinned and worm-like, the crane fly larva, often called a leatherjacket, burrows through wet mud and decaying vegetation at the edges of ponds and streams, breaking down plant material as it grows.
aquatic-insect
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.
flySmall Tortoiseshell
A vivid orange-red European garden butterfly patterned with black and yellow blocks and a border of blue crescents, one of the most familiar and widely recognized butterflies across its range.
butterfly
Small Emperor Moth
A striking day-flying moth with large eyespots on all four wings, gray-brown coloring in males and paler gray in the larger females, native to heathlands and open countryside across Europe.
moth
Small Milkweed Bug
A red-and-black seed bug with a distinctive X-shaped pattern on its back, commonly found feeding on milkweed seeds and sap alongside monarch caterpillars.
true-bugGall 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.
flyNo-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.
flyBiting Midge
A minuscule, gray-winged fly that gathers in dense swarms near wetlands and can slip through window screens unnoticed.
fly
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.
flyHoverfly
A slender, bee- or wasp-patterned fly known for its remarkable ability to hover motionless in midair before darting suddenly to a new flower.
flyLily Leaf Beetle
A brilliant scarlet-red beetle with a jet-black head, legs, and underside that feeds almost exclusively on true lilies and fritillaries, often stripping leaves down to bare stems.
beetleMaggot
A pale, legless, tapering grub that wriggles through rotting food and organic waste, the larval stage of a fly.
caterpillar-larvaRoot 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
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-bugPunkie
An almost invisibly small biting fly that swarms near wetlands at dusk, where only the females take blood meals from animal hosts.
flyIchneumon 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.
waspRat-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
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.
flySand 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
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.
flyCaddisfly 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
American Copper
A small, bright orange-and-black butterfly with fiery copper-colored forewings and dusky gray hindwings edged in orange, commonly seen darting low over weedy fields and vacant lots.
butterfly
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