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.
Armyworm
A striped, greenish-brown caterpillar that gets its name from its habit of migrating in dense, destructive groups across grass and grain fields.
caterpillar-larva
Firebrat
A fast, wingless, mottled gray-brown insect with long antennae and tail bristles that thrives in the warm, humid corners near ovens, boilers, and pipes.
other
Marbled White
A striking checkerboard butterfly with bold black-and-white wing patterning, despite its name it belongs to the brown butterfly family rather than the whites.
butterfly
American Dog Tick
A stout, mottled brown-and-silver tick that waits on grass blades with its front legs outstretched, ready to latch onto a passing host.
arachnid
Speckled Wood
A dappled brown-and-cream butterfly that thrives in the sun-flecked shade of woodland edges, where it perches on sunlit leaves to defend its territory.
butterfly
House Spider
A small, round-bodied brown spider with mottled markings that spins tangled, irregular cobwebs in quiet corners, ceilings, and undisturbed indoor spaces.
spider
Whitefringed Beetle
A stout gray-brown weevil named for the pale, fringe-like stripe along the outer edge of its wing covers, whose root-feeding larvae are a recognized issue in pastures and row crops.
beetle
Amazonian Giant Centipede
The largest centipede on the planet, a formidable dark reddish-brown predator from South American rainforests capable of capturing prey as large as bats and small reptiles.
myriapod
Argentine Ant
A small, uniformly light-brown ant that forms enormous, cooperative supercolonies stretching across entire regions rather than defending small individual nests.
ant
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-bug
Common Wood-Nymph
A large brown grassland butterfly with a bold yellow patch and one or two prominent black eyespots on the forewing, known for its bouncing, low-to-the-ground flight.
butterfly
Woodlouse Spider
A reddish-brown spider with oversized forward-pointing jaws specialized for piercing the armored shells of woodlice, often found lurking under damp stones and mulch.
spider
Halloween Pennant
With broad orange-amber wings banded in dark brown, this dragonfly perches conspicuously atop tall grass stems, swaying like a small flag in the breeze.
dragonfly
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
Armyworm Moth
A plain tan to reddish-brown moth whose caterpillars are famous for marching in large groups across fields, stripping grasses and grain crops as they move.
moth
Common House Mosquito
A slender, drab brown mosquito that emerges at dusk from catch basins and forgotten containers to fill neighborhoods with its familiar high-pitched whine.
fly
June Bug
A chunky, reddish-brown to nearly black scarab beetle that bumbles noisily around porch lights on warm late-spring and early-summer evenings.
beetle
Goliath Beetle
One of the largest and heaviest beetles on Earth, a massive scarab with a bold pattern of black, white, and brown stripes across its shield-like body.
beetle
House 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
Boll Weevil
A small, grayish-brown snout beetle with a long, curved rostrum, historically famous for its close feeding association with cotton flower buds and bolls.
beetle
June Beetle
A stout, reddish-brown scarab beetle that emerges in late spring and early summer, famous for clumsily bumping into porch lights and window screens at night.
beetle
Honeybee
A fuzzy, golden-brown and black social bee that lives in large colonies, builds wax honeycomb, and is the primary managed pollinator of crops and wildflowers worldwide.
bee
Pine Sawyer Beetle
A large, long-antennaed longhorn beetle of pine and spruce forests, mottled gray-brown to black, that produces a rasping sound when handled and whose larvae tunnel deep into dead or dying conifer wood.
beetle
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