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.
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
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
Two-Spotted Spider Mite
A near-microscopic mite that spins fine silk webbing over leaves as it feeds, leaving foliage stippled and pale.
arachnid
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.
beetle
Spittlebug
A small hopping true bug best known in its nymph stage, which surrounds itself in a frothy mass of white foam on plant stems, commonly called cuckoo spit.
true-bug
Mealybug
A soft, oval insect coated in a powdery white waxy secretion that gives it a fuzzy, cotton-like appearance, typically found clustered in leaf joints and along stems of houseplants.
true-bug
Stag Beetle
A large, glossy beetle whose males wield oversized, antler-like mandibles resembling a stag's rack of horns, used for wrestling rival males rather than for feeding.
beetle
Common Water Strider
Skating effortlessly across the surface film of ponds and slow streams, the common water strider rows itself along on hair-fringed legs to ambush insects trapped in the surface tension.
true-bug
Dobsonfly Larva (Hellgrammite)
A large, fierce-looking aquatic larva with strong pinching jaws and fringed side gills, spending years hunting under stream rocks before becoming a giant winged dobsonfly.
aquatic-insect
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.
beetle
Fireflies
A soft-bodied beetle famous for producing rhythmic, glowing flashes of light from its abdomen at dusk, used to signal and attract mates across meadows and gardens on warm summer evenings.
beetle
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.
beetle
White Grub
A pale, C-shaped larva with a brown head capsule and six stubby legs, spending its entire early life hidden underground feeding on roots before emerging as a stout May or June beetle.
beetle
Mexican Redknee Tarantula
One of the most recognizable tarantulas in the world, this heavy-bodied spider has jet-black legs banded with vivid orange-red at each joint, and defends itself by kicking a cloud of irritating hairs from its abdomen rather than attacking.
spider
Colorado Potato Beetle
A rounded, boldly striped yellow-and-black beetle that is one of the most notorious defoliators of potato plants, easily spotted marching across leaves in gardens and fields.
beetle
Jerusalem Cricket
A large, wingless, ground-dwelling insect with a shiny amber body, a strikingly human-like face, and a robust, banded abdomen, most often uncovered while digging in soil.
grasshopper-cricket
Cockchafer
A large, reddish-brown scarab beetle with distinctive fan-shaped antennae, famous for its noisy, clumsy evening flights around trees in late spring, giving rise to its alternate name, the May bug.
beetle
Water Strider
A slender, long-legged true bug famous for skating effortlessly across the surface of ponds and streams using water's surface tension.
aquatic-insect
Horn Fly
A tiny, dark fly that clusters in dense patches on the backs and shoulders of grazing cattle, using piercing mouthparts to take frequent small blood meals.
fly
Deer Fly
A small but aggressive fly with strikingly patterned, dark-banded wings and bright green or gold eyes, often circling the head and shoulders while hunting for a blood meal.
fly
Io Moth Caterpillar
A bright lime-green caterpillar bristling with clusters of branching, stinging spines and thin red and white racing stripes along its sides.
caterpillar-larva
Asparagus Beetle
A small, boldly patterned blue-black beetle with cream and orange-red markings that clusters on emerging asparagus spears in spring.
beetle
Band-winged Grasshopper
A camouflaged grasshopper that flashes vivid yellow, red, or blue hindwings in flight before vanishing again into the dust the instant it lands.
grasshopper-cricket
Gypsy Moth Caterpillar (Spongy Moth)
A bristly, blue-and-red-spotted caterpillar that can strip entire hardwood forests bare during major outbreak years.
caterpillar-larva