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.
Cigarette Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown, humpbacked beetle that rides along in stored dried herbs, spices, and tobacco wherever it hitches a ride.
beetle
Brown Recluse Spider
A uniformly light-brown spider with a faint violin-shaped marking on its back and only six eyes instead of the usual eight, typically found hiding in dry, undisturbed indoor and outdoor spaces.
spider
Indianmeal Moth
A small moth with two-toned, coppery-and-gray wings whose caterpillars spin silken webbing through stored grain, cereal, and dried fruit.
moth
Indian Meal Moth
A small, distinctively two-toned moth with pale grey-tan inner wings and coppery-reddish outer wings, widely recognized as the most common moth found infesting stored dry food products in homes.
moth
Follicle Mite
An elongated, microscopic mite shaped almost like a tiny worm, living deep within hair follicles and oil glands of mammal skin where it spends its entire life largely unnoticed.
arachnid
Drugstore Beetle
A tiny brown beetle with grooved wing covers that once earned its name by burrowing into dried herbs and medicines kept on pharmacy shelves.
beetle
Carpet Beetle
A tiny, rounded beetle with a mottled scale pattern of white, brown, and yellow, whose bristly larvae are known for feeding on wool, fur, and other dried animal fibers indoors.
beetle
Crane Fly Larva
Thick-skinned and worm-like, the crane fly larva, often called a leatherjacket, burrows through wet mud and decaying vegetation at the edges of ponds and streams, breaking down plant material as it grows.
aquatic-insect
Mediterranean Flour Moth
A small, pale grey moth with fine dark wavy lines on its forewings, whose larvae spin webbing through flour, grain, and other stored dry food products, making it a well-known pest of mills and pantries.
moth
Redback Spider
A glossy black spider marked with a single bold red stripe down its back, the redback spider is one of Australia's most recognizable cobweb spiders, most often found tucked into dry, sheltered corners around homes and gardens.
spider
Horse Fly Larva
Hidden in the wet mud along pond and stream margins, the horse fly larva is a tapered, tough-skinned predator that hunts other small soil and mud-dwelling invertebrates before eventually transforming into the familiar biting fly.
aquatic-insect
Spider Mite
A speck-sized arachnid that spins fine silk webbing across infested leaves as it pierces plant cells for their contents, leaving behind a telltale stippled, bronzed appearance. Populations can explode rapidly in hot, dry weather, making it a familiar garden and greenhouse pest.
arachnid
Scabies Mite
A microscopic, eyeless mite that spends its entire life cycle burrowed within the outer layer of a mammal's skin, among the smallest arachnids known to science. Unlike free-living mites, it has no independent existence away from a host and is studied primarily through microscopic examination rather than direct observation.
arachnid
Julia Butterfly
A brilliant, elongated-winged orange butterfly of tropical and subtropical habitats, with males glowing an intense unmarked orange and females showing subtler markings and a hint of black striping.
butterfly
Backswimmer
A boat-shaped aquatic true bug that swims upside down using oar-like hind legs, patrolling pond water in search of small prey.
aquatic-insect
Pill Millipede
A short, heavily armored millipede that rolls into a tight, perfect ball when disturbed, closely resembling a pill bug but built from far fewer, broader body segments.
myriapod
Lesser Water Boatman
A flat-backed, oar-legged true bug that rows through pond water with fringed hind legs, surfacing periodically to trap a silvery bubble of air against its body.
true-bug
Meadow Spittlebug
A small, mottled hopping true bug whose immature nymphs are far more often noticed than the adults, hidden inside frothy blobs of white foam known as cuckoo spit on plant stems.
true-bug
Emerald Spreadwing
A robust, metallic green damselfly of northern wetlands, the Emerald Spreadwing rests with its wings held open in the characteristic spreadwing posture and thrives in shallow, seasonal ponds.
dragonfly
Termite
A pale, soft-bodied social insect that lives in hidden colonies and feeds on cellulose in wood and plant debris, often mistaken for an ant despite belonging to an entirely different insect order.
other
Rosy Maple Moth
A small, plush-looking moth in candy-pink and lemon-yellow, often described as one of the most vividly colored moths in North America despite its modest size.
moth
Flat-backed Millipede
A slow, armor-plated decomposer whose body segments flare into flat, wing-like keels, giving it a distinctly ribbed, tank-like silhouette compared to rounder millipedes.
myriapod
Vine Weevil
A slow, flightless, matte-black beetle that hides by day and emerges at night to notch neat semicircular bites from the edges of leaves.
beetle
Fire Ant Queen
The reproductive powerhouse of a fire ant colony, noticeably larger than the reddish worker ants and equipped with wings before she sheds them to found a new nest.
ant