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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Flower Chafer Beetle
Often clad in brilliant metallic greens, golds, and bronzes, flower chafers are day-flying scarab beetles that feed on flowers. Many buzz loudly in flight and keep their wing covers closed as they take off.
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Death Watch Beetle
A mottled brown wood-boring beetle famous for the faint ticking sound it taps out inside old timbers, once thought by superstitious listeners to be an omen of death.
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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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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.
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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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Metallic Wood-boring Beetle
The North American common name for jewel beetles, emphasizing the wood-tunneling habits of their larvae, which leave telltale flattened, D-shaped exit holes in bark of stressed or dying trees.
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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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Wireworm
Slender, shiny, and armor-hard, the wireworm is the long-lived soil-dwelling larva of a click beetle, spending years underground feeding on seeds, roots, and tubers before ever taking beetle form.
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Fireflies Larvae Glowworm
The larval form of fireflies, often called glowworms, are flattened, segmented crawlers that glow with a steady greenish light. These little predators hunt slugs, snails, and worms in damp ground.
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Mealworm
A tan, segmented larva with a shiny hard exoskeleton that tunnels through stored grain and flour before transforming into a darkling beetle.
caterpillar-larva
Silverfish
A wingless, silvery-gray insect with a tapered, fish-like body and three long tail bristles, known for its quick, darting movements and preference for dark, humid hiding spots.
other
Waxworm
A soft, cream-colored grub found tunneling through beeswax comb, the waxworm is the larva of the wax moth and has become a household staple as fishing bait and reptile feed.
caterpillar-larva
Carrot Rust Fly
A slender, shiny black fly barely a few millimeters long whose slim yellowish larvae tunnel rust-colored trails through carrot and parsnip roots.
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Dobsonfly
A massive, primitive-looking insect whose males brandish absurdly long, curved mandibles used for wrestling rivals rather than for feeding.
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