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.
Yellow Garden Spider
Bold black and yellow markings, a large orb web anchored with a bright zigzag of silk, and a habit of sitting in plain view make the yellow garden spider one of the most eye-catching and recognizable spiders in North American backyards.
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Regal Jumping Spider
One of the largest and most striking North American jumping spiders, with a velvety black body, bold markings, and huge iridescent green or blue-lined eyes.
spiderOgre-faced Spider
A twig-like nocturnal spider with enormous, light-gathering eyes that weaves a small rectangular net and hurls it over passing prey in a lightning-fast ambush.
spiderNursery Web Spider
Named for the silken nursery tent females weave to guard their hatching young, this slender, long-legged spider carries her large egg sac beneath her body in her fangs until the eggs are ready to hatch.
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Orb Weaver Spider
A stout-bodied spider best known for spinning the classic, near-perfect circular "orb" web strung between plants, eaves, or fences, often rebuilt fresh each night.
spiderLace Weaver Spider
A stocky, mottled spider that spins a distinctive bluish, woolly-looking lace-like web across bark and wall crevices to snare passing insects.
spiderFunnel Weaver Spider
Nearly invisible until dew or morning frost outlines it in silver, the funnel weaver's sheet-and-tunnel web is a familiar sight across lawns and gardens, with its owner watching from the safety of a silken tube.
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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.
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Common House Spider
Tucked into a messy tangle of silk in a quiet corner, the common house spider is one of the most familiar indoor spiders, quietly picking off flies and other small insects that blunder into its web.
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Brazilian Wandering Spider
A fast, ground-dwelling hunter of the South American rainforest floor, the Brazilian wandering spider builds no web at all, instead actively roaming at night in search of prey and occasionally turning up in shipments of bananas, which earned it a widely known nickname.
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Comb-footed Spider
A diverse family of spiders defined by a row of tiny serrated bristles on their hind legs, used like a comb to fling silk over prey and wrap it up in an instant.
spiderAnt-mimic Spider
A slender jumping spider that walks on six legs while waving the front pair like antennae, convincingly passing itself off as an ant to fool predators and prey alike.
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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.
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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.
beetlePleasing Fungus Beetle
A shiny, smooth-bodied beetle marked with bold red or orange bands on a glossy black background, commonly found feeding on bracket fungi growing on dead or dying hardwood trees.
beetleGolden Tortoise Beetle
A tiny, dome-shaped beetle famous for its brilliant, mirror-like gold sheen, which it can dial down to a dull orange or spotted reddish tone within minutes when disturbed or handled.
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Sydney Funnel-web Spider
Glossy black and heavily built, with large fangs held ready in front of its face, the Sydney funnel-web spider shelters in a silk-lined burrow in moist, shaded ground across the Sydney region, one of Australia's most distinctive ground-dwelling spiders.
spiderSix-eyed Sand Spider
A flattened, sand-colored spider that buries itself just beneath the desert surface, ambushing prey while remaining almost invisible against the dunes.
spiderGarden Orb Weaver Spider
The classic maker of the round, wheel-shaped web, the garden orb weaver hangs head-down at the center of its silken snare. Many sport a cross-like pattern of pale spots on a rounded abdomen.
spiderWater Scavenger Beetle
Rounded and glossy, water scavenger beetles paddle through weedy ponds gathering air with a short antenna rather than a snorkel-like tube, feeding mostly on decaying plant matter and algae.
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Striped Cucumber Beetle
A small, bright yellow beetle marked with three bold black stripes running the length of its wing covers, a frequent and highly visible visitor to cucumber, squash, and melon plants.
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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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Great Diving Beetle
One of Europe's largest water beetles, the great diving beetle is a streamlined, olive-brown predator that rows through ponds on fringed hind legs, surfacing periodically to trap a bubble of air beneath its wing covers.
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Green June Beetle
A large, velvety green scarab beetle with bronze edges that flies with a loud buzzing drone on warm summer days, often seen around ripening fruit.
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