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.
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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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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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.
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Water 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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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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Mexican Bean Beetle
A copper-colored, spotted beetle resembling an overgrown ladybird that feeds on bean plant leaves along with its spiny yellow larvae.
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Asian Lady Beetle
A highly variable orange-to-red ladybird beetle, often bearing many black spots or none at all, famous for swarming into homes in large numbers during autumn.
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Red Flour Beetle
A tiny, flattened, rust-red beetle found in stored flour and grain worldwide, capable of flight and closely resembling the confused flour beetle apart from the shape of its antennal club.
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American Carrion Beetle
A broad, flattened black beetle with a striking pale yellow shield behind its head, commonly found on and around small animal carcasses where it feeds alongside fly larvae.
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Spotted Cucumber Beetle
A small, elongated yellow-green beetle marked with twelve black spots across its wing covers, commonly seen on cucurbit and corn plants throughout the growing season.
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Lily Leaf Beetle
A brilliant scarlet-red beetle with a jet-black head, legs, and underside that feeds almost exclusively on true lilies and fritillaries, often stripping leaves down to bare stems.
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Net-winged Beetle
A soft-bodied beetle with broad, ridged wing covers patterned in bold orange or red and black bands, whose netlike wing venation and vivid coloring warn potential predators of its unpalatability.
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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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Ten-lined June Beetle
A large, brown scarab beetle marked with bold white racing stripes down its wing covers, known for its loud buzzing flight and hissing defensive squeak.
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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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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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Old House Borer
A grayish-brown to nearly black longhorn beetle whose larvae bore extensively through structural softwood, capable of causing large galleries hidden beneath the wood surface.
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Locust Borer
A slender black longhorn beetle boldly striped with yellow, closely resembling a wasp, commonly seen visiting goldenrod flowers in autumn near black locust trees.
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Emerald Ash Borer
A slender, bullet-shaped beetle with brilliant metallic-green coloring, whose bark-tunneling larvae feed almost exclusively within ash 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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Squash Vine Borer
A day-flying, wasp-mimicking moth whose orange fuzzy hind legs and metallic wings make it easy to mistake for a wasp as it darts around squash vines.
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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.
true-bug
Sawfly
A wasp relative that never stings, best known for its caterpillar-like larvae that strip leaves from roses, pines, and other garden plants in tidy rows.
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Carpenter Bee
A large, robust bee closely resembling a bumblebee but with a shiny, mostly bald black abdomen, known for excavating tunnel nests into bare, untreated wood.
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