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.
Whitefringed Beetle
A stout gray-brown weevil named for the pale, fringe-like stripe along the outer edge of its wing covers, whose root-feeding larvae are a recognized issue in pastures and row crops.
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Colorado Potato Beetle
A rounded, boldly striped yellow-and-black beetle that is one of the most notorious defoliators of potato plants, easily spotted marching across leaves in gardens and fields.
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Eastern Hercules Beetle
One of the largest beetles in North America, a massive rhinoceros beetle in which males bear an enormous forked horn used to wrestle rivals off of favored tree sap sites.
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Striped Cucumber Beetle
A small, bright yellow beetle marked with three bold black stripes running the length of its wing covers, a frequent and highly visible visitor to cucumber, squash, and melon plants.
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Great Silver Water Beetle
One of the largest beetles in Europe, the great silver water beetle is a glossy jet-black giant that rows through weedy ponds carrying a silvery film of air trapped beneath its body.
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Devil's Coach Horse Beetle
A large, matte-black rove beetle that raises its flexible abdomen up and over its back like a scorpion's tail and gapes its jaws when threatened, one of the biggest and most dramatic rove beetles in Europe.
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Predaceous Diving Beetle
A sleek, streamlined beetle built for underwater hunting, carrying its own air supply as it patrols ponds in search of prey.
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Metallic Wood-boring Beetle
The North American common name for jewel beetles, emphasizing the wood-tunneling habits of their larvae, which leave telltale flattened, D-shaped exit holes in bark of stressed or dying trees.
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Cottonwood Borer
A large, boldly patterned longhorn beetle in black and chalky white checkerboard markings, often found clinging to the trunks of cottonwood and poplar trees near its larvae's root tunnels.
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Diving Beetle Larva (Water Tiger)
Nicknamed the water tiger, the larva of a predaceous diving beetle is an elongated, sickle-jawed hunter that stalks the shallows and seizes prey many times its own size.
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Devil's Flower Mantis
One of the largest mantis species on Earth, this striking insect can suddenly rear up and fan out vividly colored wings and legs into a dramatic, flower-like threat display.
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Boll Weevil
A small, grayish-brown snout beetle with a long, curved rostrum, historically famous for its close feeding association with cotton flower buds and bolls.
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Rootworm
Working unseen below ground, rootworm larvae chew tunnels through the root systems of corn and other crops, the underground counterpart to the small, often striped or spotted beetles seen on leaves and flowers above.
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Ladybug
A small, round, brightly colored beetle with a domed, shiny shell typically red or orange with black spots, one of the most recognizable and beloved beetles found in gardens worldwide.
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Wireworm
Slender, shiny, and armor-hard, the wireworm is the long-lived soil-dwelling larva of a click beetle, spending years underground feeding on seeds, roots, and tubers before ever taking beetle form.
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Soil Mite
A microscopic, heavily armored mite found by the millions in a single handful of soil, quietly breaking down leaf litter and helping build the fertile ground beneath forests and fields.
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Black Vine Weevil
A flightless, all-black snout beetle notorious for notching the edges of leaves at night while its underground larvae feed on plant roots and crowns.
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Jewel Bug
A living gemstone of the insect world, the jewel bug shimmers in dazzling metallic greens, blues, reds, and golds. Its enlarged shield-like back covers the entire body, making it look like a polished piece of enamelware.
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Sacred Scarab
A stout, matte-black dung beetle famous for rolling balls of dung across the ground with its hind legs, and revered in Ancient Egypt as a symbol of the sun and renewal.
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Fireflies
A soft-bodied beetle famous for producing rhythmic, glowing flashes of light from its abdomen at dusk, used to signal and attract mates across meadows and gardens on warm summer evenings.
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Mealworm
A tan, segmented larva with a shiny hard exoskeleton that tunnels through stored grain and flour before transforming into a darkling beetle.
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Tachinid Fly
A bristly, house-fly-like insect that looks unremarkable at a glance but hides one of the most important ecological roles among flies: its larvae develop as internal parasites of caterpillars, beetles, and other insects, quietly regulating populations across the landscape. Gardeners often welcome tachinid flies as natural allies against crop-damaging pests.
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Flea Beetle
A tiny, shiny beetle that springs away like a flea when disturbed, leaving characteristic small round holes peppered across the leaves it feeds on.
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Seven-spotted Ladybird
A classic bright red ladybird with exactly seven black spots, one of the most iconic and widely recognized beetles in the world.
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