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.
Bed Bug
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless insect shaped like an apple seed that hides in mattress seams and bed frames by day and emerges at night to feed.
true-bugPygmy Grasshopper
A tiny, ground-hugging grasshopper with an elongated pronotum extending back over its body, often found hopping along muddy pond edges.
grasshopper-cricket
Grain Moth
A tiny buff-colored moth whose larvae tunnel invisibly inside individual kernels of stored grain, hollowing them out from within.
moth
Chinch Bug
A tiny black-and-white true bug that feeds on grasses, often overlooked individually but capable of forming dense colonies in sunny, dry patches of lawn.
true-bug
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-bugGrasshopper
A robust, strong-jumping insect with short antennae and powerful hind legs, commonly seen springing away through grass and low vegetation on warm sunny days.
grasshopper-cricket
Chinese Mantis
One of the largest praying mantises found in North America, an introduced species with a lean brown-and-green body and grasping spined forelegs built for ambushing insect prey.
mantis-stick
Common Earwig
A flattened, reddish-brown insect instantly recognizable by the pair of pincer-like forceps at the tip of its abdomen, which it uses for defense and to help fold its wings.
other
Bagrada Bug
A tiny, orange-and-black stink bug with an intricate mottled pattern, notable as a small-bodied specialist pest of cabbage-family plants in warm, dry climates.
true-bug
Question Mark Butterfly
A ragged-edged anglewing butterfly named for the tiny silver question-mark squiggle on its mottled brown underside, with tawny-orange upperwings dotted in black.
butterfly
Money Spider
A tiny sheet-weaving spider, often seen drifting through the air on silk threads, traditionally said to bring good luck when it lands on you.
spider
Casemaking Clothes Moth
A small mottled moth whose larva builds a tiny portable silk case, dragging its own protective shelter along as it grazes on wool and fur.
moth
Migratory Locust
A grasshopper with a split personality, the migratory locust can switch from a quiet, solitary green insect into a boldly marked swarming form that travels in enormous, crop-devouring bands.
grasshopper-cricketJerusalem Cricket
A large, wingless, ground-dwelling insect with a shiny amber body, a strikingly human-like face, and a robust, banded abdomen, most often uncovered while digging in soil.
grasshopper-cricket
Little Yellow
A tiny, pale lemon-yellow butterfly with a thin, crisp black wing border, fluttering close to the ground in fields and roadsides across the southern and eastern United States.
butterfly
Flesh Fly
A bristly gray fly marked with three dark thoracic stripes and a checkerboard-patterned abdomen, often spotted hovering near carrion or garbage.
flyMayfly
A delicate insect with upright, sail-like wings and long, thread-thin tail filaments, famous for emerging by the millions in brief, synchronized swarms before dying within a day or two.
aquatic-insect
Fruit Fly
A tiny tan fly with prominent red eyes that swarms around overripe fruit, wine, and vinegar, appearing seemingly out of nowhere thanks to an extremely fast life cycle.
fly
Karner Blue
A tiny, silvery-blue butterfly dependent entirely on wild lupine and now known chiefly from a small number of protected sandy-soil habitats in the Great Lakes and Northeast.
butterflyWhip Spider
A flattened, spider-like arachnid with no venom and no silk, using a pair of extremely long, whip-like front legs as sensitive feelers to navigate the dark.
arachnid
Powderpost Beetle
A small, slender reddish-brown to dark brown beetle whose larvae tunnel through seasoned hardwood, reducing it internally to a fine, powdery frass.
beetle
Ground Spider
A dark, fast-moving nocturnal hunter that patrols the ground surface at night, easily recognized by its distinctive pair of forward-projecting silk spinnerets.
spiderCluster Fly
A sluggish, dark fly covered in fine golden hairs that gathers by the hundreds on sun-warmed walls in autumn before slipping indoors to spend the winter.
fly
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