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.
Firefly Beetle
A soft-bodied, dark beetle famous for producing rhythmic flashes of light from its abdomen at dusk, using bioluminescence to attract mates on warm summer evenings.
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Hercules Beetle
One of the largest beetles in the world, with males bearing dramatic, forceps-like horns nearly as long as the rest of their armored, olive-green body.
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Fig Beetle
A large, dull metallic-green scarab beetle with a loud, buzzing flight, often seen crash-landing near ripe or overripe fruit and compost piles on warm summer days.
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Japanese Beetle
A small, iridescent beetle with a metallic green head and thorax and coppery-bronze wing covers, notorious for skeletonizing the leaves of roses, grapevines, and hundreds of other garden plants.
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Furniture Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown to dark brown cylindrical beetle whose larvae, commonly called 'woodworm,' bore small round tunnels through seasoned furniture and timber.
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Cigarette Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown, humpbacked beetle that rides along in stored dried herbs, spices, and tobacco wherever it hitches a ride.
beetleDarkling Beetle
A uniformly dark, matte-black ground beetle often seen walking deliberately across open soil, known for tilting its rear end skyward in a distinctive defensive posture when disturbed.
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Drugstore Beetle
A tiny brown beetle with grooved wing covers that once earned its name by burrowing into dried herbs and medicines kept on pharmacy shelves.
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Diving Beetle
A smooth, streamlined, dark-bodied beetle with broad, fringed hind legs built for swimming, an active underwater predator that carries its own air supply beneath its wing covers.
aquatic-insectDung Beetle
A stout, often glossy black or metallic beetle famous for rolling, burying, or tunneling into animal dung, an unglamorous but ecologically vital habit that recycles nutrients back into the soil.
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Click Beetle
An elongated, streamlined beetle famous for the audible clicking snap it makes to flip itself upright when placed on its back, a spring-loaded escape mechanism unique to this family.
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Bess Beetle
A large, glossy jet-black beetle that lives in family groups inside rotting logs, communicating with fellow beetles through squeaks and cooperating to raise larvae, an unusually social lifestyle for an insect of its kind.
beetleBark Beetle
A tiny, cylindrical, dark-bodied beetle that tunnels beneath tree bark, leaving distinctive branching gallery patterns as the clearest sign of its presence.
beetleBombardier Beetle
A dark, quick-moving ground beetle famous for firing a hot, audible chemical spray from its abdomen when disturbed, using two-tone coloring of a reddish head and thorax against blue-black wing covers as a warning signal.
beetleBurying Beetle
A black beetle marked with bold orange-red bands, notable for locating small dead animals, burying them underground, and cooperatively raising larvae with a partner over the buried carcass.
beetleWater Penny Beetle
A flattened, coin-shaped larva that clings almost invisibly to the surface of submerged stream rocks, named for its uncanny resemblance to a small penny.
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Varied Carpet Beetle
A tiny beetle mottled with white, brown, and yellow scales that, as a fuzzy larva, quietly grazes on natural fibers tucked away in closets and attics.
beetleWater Scavenger Beetle
Rounded and glossy, water scavenger beetles paddle through weedy ponds gathering air with a short antenna rather than a snorkel-like tube, feeding mostly on decaying plant matter and algae.
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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.
beetlePleasing Fungus Beetle
A shiny, smooth-bodied beetle marked with bold red or orange bands on a glossy black background, commonly found feeding on bracket fungi growing on dead or dying hardwood trees.
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Palo Verde Beetle
One of the largest beetles in North America, a heavy, dark reddish-brown longhorn beetle with long spiny antennae and a loud, buzzing flight that emerges from the desert soil around palo verde and mesquite trees in summer.
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Great Diving Beetle
One of Europe's largest water beetles, the great diving beetle is a streamlined, olive-brown predator that rows through ponds on fringed hind legs, surfacing periodically to trap a bubble of air beneath its wing covers.
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Milkweed Leaf Beetle
A large, boldly colored leaf beetle in glossy orange-red with irregular black patches, found feeding exclusively on milkweed plants alongside monarch caterpillars.
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Green June Beetle
A large, velvety green scarab beetle with bronze edges that flies with a loud buzzing drone on warm summer days, often seen around ripening fruit.
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