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.
Sun Spider
A fast-running, fiercely built desert arachnid with oversized jaws, often mistaken for a giant spider despite belonging to an entirely different arachnid order.
arachnidPurseweb Spider
A secretive, tube-dwelling spider that spends nearly its entire life hidden inside a silk-lined burrow extension camouflaged with soil and debris on the surface.
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Hobo Spider
A fast-running, brown funnel-web spider with a chevron pattern down its abdomen, the hobo spider builds a flat, non-sticky sheet web that narrows into a tunnel retreat where it waits for prey.
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Crab Spider
Perched motionless atop a flower petal, often perfectly matched to its color, the crab spider is a patient ambusher that waits for pollinators to land within reach of its outstretched front legs.
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Cellar Spider
A pale, long-legged spider that builds loose, irregular webs in dark corners and is famous for rapidly vibrating in its web when disturbed, causing it to blur into an indistinct shape.
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Diving Bell Spider
The world's only truly aquatic spider, famous for spinning an underwater silk bell that it fills with air, allowing it to live, hunt, and breed almost entirely submerged.
spiderTube Web Spider
A sleek, cylindrical spider that lives inside a silk-lined tube and dashes out to seize insects that stumble across its radiating trip-lines.
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Bold Jumping Spider
A stocky, fuzzy black spider with iridescent green or blue mouthparts and a bold white or orange spot on its abdomen, the bold jumper is known for its excellent eyesight, curious behavior, and ability to leap many times its own body length.
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Brown Widow Spider
Named for its mottled tan-and-brown coloring rather than glossy black, the brown widow is easily recognized by its distinctive spiky, off-white egg sacs and an orange hourglass on its underside.
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.
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American House Spider
A small, brownish spider with a bulbous, mottled abdomen that spins loose, irregular tangle webs in quiet corners, ceilings, and window frames.
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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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.
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Common House Spider
Tucked into a messy tangle of silk in a quiet corner, the common house spider is one of the most familiar indoor spiders, quietly picking off flies and other small insects that blunder into its web.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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.
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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.
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Spined Soldier Bug
A predatory stink bug identified by the sharp, pointed spines projecting from its shoulders, valued in gardens and farm fields for hunting caterpillars, beetle larvae, and other pest insects.
true-bugMourning Cloak Caterpillar
A gregarious, velvety black caterpillar speckled with white dots and a striking row of brick-red spots down its back, often seen feeding in clusters on willow branches.
caterpillar-larvaTailless Whip Scorpion
A flattened, spider-like arachnid with no stinger and no fangs, instead using a pair of long whip-like sensory legs and grasping spiny arms to feel out and seize prey in total darkness.
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