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.
Thrips
A minuscule, slender insect with fringed, feather-like wings, often noticed only as a fast-moving dark speck darting across a flower petal or windowsill.
other
Lace Bug
A tiny, flattened true bug with delicately sculpted, lace-like wings resembling fine netting, the lace bug feeds in colonies on the undersides of leaves, leaving a stippled, bleached pattern on foliage.
true-bug
Mantidfly
A master of mimicry that pairs a praying mantis's raptorial front legs with the delicate, lacy wings of a true net-winged insect.
other
Snowy Tree Cricket
Nicknamed the thermometer cricket, this pale, delicate insect sings a steady, rhythmic chirp whose pace rises and falls so predictably with temperature that its chirp rate can be used to estimate the air temperature.
grasshopper-cricket
Antlion
An insect best known for its larval stage, the doodlebug, which digs a small conical pit trap in loose sand to ambush unwary ants, while the winged adult resembles a slender, delicate damselfly.
other
Leafcutter Bee
A stout, dark-bodied bee best known not for how it looks but for the neat, circular or oval notches it cuts from leaves, which it uses to line and seal its nest cells.
bee
Black Soldier Fly
A sleek, dark, wasp-like fly whose larvae are voracious decomposers of decaying organic material, while the short-lived adults do not feed at all.
fly
Whitefly
A tiny, moth-like white insect that clusters on the undersides of leaves and bursts into a snowy cloud when the plant is disturbed. Despite the name, it is not a true fly but a sap-feeding relative of aphids and scale insects.
true-bug
Vaporer Moth
A tussock moth with dramatic sexual differences: the male is a small rusty-brown day-flying moth with a white wing spot, while the female is a flightless, wingless gray sac-like insect that never leaves her cocoon.
moth
Common Ringlet
A small, plain buff-orange satyr butterfly of open grassy places, notable for its understated coloring and Holarctic distribution spanning North America, Europe, and Asia.
butterfly
Green Lacewing
With delicate pale green wings and glittering golden eyes, the Green Lacewing is a familiar garden insect whose larvae are voracious predators of aphids and other soft-bodied pests.
other
Water Flea
Despite the name, the water flea is not an insect at all but a tiny, jerky-swimming crustacean whose transparent body and single dark eye make it one of the most recognizable members of freshwater plankton.
other
Deer Tick
A small, dark-legged tick with a reddish-brown, teardrop-shaped body, noticeably smaller than many other common tick species and often found questing in wooded or grassy edge habitats.
arachnid
Burying 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.
beetle
Red-spotted Purple
A large, iridescent blue-black butterfly lacking tails, notable for closely mimicking the unpalatable Pipevine Swallowtail, with rows of red-orange spots visible along the underside wing margins.
butterfly
Hornet
A large, robust social wasp with a reddish-brown and yellow patterned body, notably bigger than yellowjackets, building enclosed papery nests often high in tree cavities or wall voids.
wasp
Ant
A small eusocial insect that lives in highly organized colonies, instantly recognizable by its narrow pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and single-file foraging trails.
ant
Brown Lacewing
Smaller and less conspicuous than its green relatives, the Brown Lacewing is a subtle but effective predator of aphids and other tiny insects in gardens, forests, and orchards.
other
Velvet Ant
A densely fuzzy, brightly colored insect that looks like an oversized ant but is actually a wingless female wasp, instantly recognizable by its thick coat of red, orange, black, or white hair.
wasp
Termite Swarmer
A dense, short-lived cloud of dark, equal-winged insects pouring from a crack in soil or wood, each one a would-be founder of a brand-new termite colony.
other
Leafhopper
A small, wedge-shaped insect that darts sideways and springs away in quick hops when disturbed, often brightly striped or patterned and found clinging to the underside of leaves.
true-bug
Caddisfly
A moth-like insect whose larvae are famous for constructing portable protective cases out of silk and whatever sand, twigs, or debris they can find.
aquatic-insect
Moth
A broad group of scale-winged insects related to butterflies, typically nocturnal, with stout, often furry bodies and feathery or thread-like antennae.
moth
Soldier Beetle
A slender, soft-bodied beetle in orange and black or yellow and brown, often seen clustered on late-summer flowers where it feeds on pollen, nectar, and small insects.
beetle