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.
Blow Fly
A brilliant, metallic green fly that gleams like a jewel in sunlight, quickly locating decaying material with an acute sense of smell.
flyHouse Spider
A small, round-bodied brown spider with mottled markings that spins tangled, irregular cobwebs in quiet corners, ceilings, and undisturbed indoor spaces.
spider
Small Milkweed Bug
A red-and-black seed bug with a distinctive X-shaped pattern on its back, commonly found feeding on milkweed seeds and sap alongside monarch caterpillars.
true-bug
Oleander Hawk-Moth
A large, strikingly camouflaged hawk-moth patterned in swirling olive-green, pink, and cream stripes that resemble oleander foliage, with a streamlined, torpedo-shaped body built for fast, hovering flight.
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-cricket
Lacewing
A delicate, pale green insect with large, transparent, intricately veined wings and shining golden or copper-colored eyes, valued as a natural predator of aphids in its larval form.
other
Cabbage White
A common, small white butterfly with one or two black wing spots, whose green caterpillars are a familiar sight feeding on cabbage-family garden plants.
butterflyCabbage White Caterpillar
A velvety, bright green caterpillar with a faint yellow stripe down its back, the larval stage of the common white butterfly seen fluttering around vegetable gardens.
caterpillar-larva
Blue Dasher Dragonfly
A small, common dragonfly whose mature males combine a powdery blue abdomen with brilliant green eyes, often seen perched horizontally with its tail raised skyward.
dragonfly
Angle Shades Moth
A common night-flying moth whose forewings fold into a crumpled, tent-like shape that mimics a withered or damaged leaf, marked with bold olive-green and pinkish-brown zigzag bands.
moth
Desert Locust
A large, powerful grasshopper capable of forming some of the most extensive and historically devastating insect swarms on Earth, transforming from a solitary desert dweller into a densely packed migrating horde under the right conditions.
grasshopper-cricket
Mealworm Beetle
A shiny, oval, dark reddish-brown to nearly black beetle whose larva, the familiar 'mealworm,' is a common sight in stored grain products.
beetleCobweb Spider
A common household spider that spins a messy, three-dimensional tangle of silk in dark corners and drags entangled insects up into the maze to feed.
spider
Convergent Ladybird Beetle
A common orange-red ladybird with black spots and two distinctive converging white lines on its thorax, widely valued as a natural aphid predator.
beetle
Orange Sulphur
A vivid orange-and-yellow butterfly with sharp black wing borders, one of the most common butterflies over open fields and alfalfa crops throughout North America.
butterfly
Little Wood-Satyr
A small, weak-flying brown butterfly with two prominent yellow-ringed eyespots on each wing, common along shaded woodland edges in late spring.
butterfly
Cabbage White Butterfly
A small, plain white butterfly with one or two black spots on each forewing and dark wingtips, one of the most common and widespread garden butterflies in the world.
butterfly
Ghost Ant
A minuscule ant with a dark head and pale, nearly translucent legs and abdomen that seem to vanish against light-colored surfaces, giving the species its ghostly common name.
antRipple Bug
A tiny, dark true bug that skates across the surface film of calm water, producing the faint ripples that give it its common name as it hunts for small prey trapped at the surface.
aquatic-insectField Ant
A large, common outdoor ant that builds conspicuous mound nests of soil and plant debris in sunny open ground and defends itself by spraying formic acid rather than stinging.
ant
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.
beetle
European Paper Wasp
A slender, orange-antennaed social wasp that builds small, open umbrella-shaped paper combs under eaves and ledges, now common well beyond its native European range.
waspAfricanized Honeybee (Killer Bee)
A hybrid strain of the western honey bee, nearly identical in appearance to common honey bees but known for more easily triggered, faster, and more numerous defensive responses when a colony is disturbed.
bee
Stable Fly
A gray fly that looks almost identical to the common house fly, but carries a rigid, forward-pointing proboscis built for piercing skin rather than sponging up liquids.
fly