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.
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.
spiderOgre-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.
spiderNursery Web Spider
Named for the silken nursery tent females weave to guard their hatching young, this slender, long-legged spider carries her large egg sac beneath her body in her fangs until the eggs are ready to hatch.
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Orb Weaver Spider
A stout-bodied spider best known for spinning the classic, near-perfect circular "orb" web strung between plants, eaves, or fences, often rebuilt fresh each night.
spiderFunnel Weaver Spider
Nearly invisible until dew or morning frost outlines it in silver, the funnel weaver's sheet-and-tunnel web is a familiar sight across lawns and gardens, with its owner watching from the safety of a silken tube.
spiderLace Weaver Spider
A stocky, mottled spider that spins a distinctive bluish, woolly-looking lace-like web across bark and wall crevices to snare passing insects.
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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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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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Brazilian Wandering Spider
A fast, ground-dwelling hunter of the South American rainforest floor, the Brazilian wandering spider builds no web at all, instead actively roaming at night in search of prey and occasionally turning up in shipments of bananas, which earned it a widely known nickname.
spiderAnt-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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Black Widow Spider
A glossy black, globe-bodied spider best known for the red or orange hourglass marking on the underside of the female's rounded abdomen, usually found tucked in a tangled web near ground level.
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Sydney Funnel-web Spider
Glossy black and heavily built, with large fangs held ready in front of its face, the Sydney funnel-web spider shelters in a silk-lined burrow in moist, shaded ground across the Sydney region, one of Australia's most distinctive ground-dwelling spiders.
spiderSix-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.
spiderGarden Orb Weaver Spider
The classic maker of the round, wheel-shaped web, the garden orb weaver hangs head-down at the center of its silken snare. Many sport a cross-like pattern of pale spots on a rounded abdomen.
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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.
arachnidOdorous House Ant
A dark, unassuming ant best known for releasing a smell reminiscent of rotten coconut when a worker is crushed.
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House Fly
A gray, fuzzy-bodied fly with four dark stripes on its thorax and large reddish compound eyes, famous for its erratic buzzing flight and tendency to land repeatedly on food and surfaces.
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House Cricket
A pale tan, dark-banded cricket originally from warm regions of Asia that has spread worldwide both as an occasional indoor nuisance and as a widely farmed feeder insect.
grasshopper-cricketHouse Ant
A small, dark brown to black ant that forages in loose trails along countertops and baseboards and releases a distinctive rotten-coconut smell when crushed.
ant
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.
flyGolden Silk Orb-Weaver Spider
Famous for spinning enormous webs of shimmering golden silk, the golden silk orb-weaver is a large, long-legged spider of warm climates. Females dwarf the tiny males and hang head-down in their sprawling snares.
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Common Clubtail
This river-loving dragonfly gets its name from the noticeably widened, club-shaped tip of its abdomen, which it displays as it rests on sunlit waterside vegetation.
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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.
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Common Sanddragon
A sand-colored clubtail dragonfly that perches flat on bare, sunlit riverbank sand, nearly vanishing against the grains around it.
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