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.
Pavement Ant
A stocky brown to black ant famous for the dramatic "ant wars" its colonies wage along sidewalk cracks each spring.
ant
Itch Mite
A microscopic, rounded mite that spends its entire life cycle within the skin of a mammalian host, invisible without a microscope.
arachnid
Spangled Skimmer
Named for the bright white 'spangles' at the base of its wings, the Spangled Skimmer pairs a powder-blue male body with crisp black-and-white wing markings.
dragonflySod Webworm
A dull, grayish-green caterpillar that hides in silk-lined burrows by day and emerges at night to chew grass blades down to the thatch.
caterpillar-larva
Rocky Mountain Wood Tick
A robust, ornately patterned tick of the western mountains that clings to shrubs and grasses waiting to grab a passing mammal.
arachnid
Money Spider
A tiny sheet-weaving spider, often seen drifting through the air on silk threads, traditionally said to bring good luck when it lands on you.
spider
Giant Walking Stick
The longest insect in the United States, this brown, thread-thin giant sways gently on its perch to complete the illusion of a wind-stirred twig.
mantis-stick
Digger Wasp
A solitary, ground-nesting wasp that excavates neat burrows in bare soil and provisions them with paralyzed prey for its young.
waspMantidfly
A master of mimicry that pairs a praying mantis's raptorial front legs with the delicate, lacy wings of a true net-winged insect.
other
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-insectStonefly
A flattened, drab-winged insect whose nymphs are among the most reliable living indicators of pristine, well-oxygenated stream water.
aquatic-insectRoot Maggot
A small, legless white grub that lives hidden in the soil, tunneling into the roots of cabbage-family vegetables where it feeds unseen.
fly
Peck's Skipper
A tiny, tawny-orange and brown skipper with a bold, irregular yellow patch on the underside of the hindwing that looks almost like a splash of paint.
butterfly
Robber Fly
A powerfully built, bristly-faced predatory fly that ambushes other flying insects in midair, piercing them with a stout beak-like proboscis.
fly
Privet Hawk-Moth
The largest resident hawk-moth in much of northern Europe, with streaked brown forewings and a striking abdomen banded in pink and black stripes.
mothPirate Spider
A stealthy, spider-eating specialist that sneaks onto another spider's web, plucks the silk to mimic trapped prey, and ambushes the unsuspecting owner.
spider
Orange-barred Sulphur
One of the largest sulphur butterflies, bright yellow with a bold band of deep orange across the forewing and a solid orange wash on the hindwing in males.
butterfly
Marbled White
A striking checkerboard butterfly with bold black-and-white wing patterning, despite its name it belongs to the brown butterfly family rather than the whites.
butterfly
Great Blue Skimmer
One of North America's largest skimmers, the Great Blue Skimmer's powdery sky-blue body and pale green eyes make it stand out as it cruises woodland pond edges.
dragonfly
Hercules Beetle
One of the largest beetles in the world, with males bearing dramatic, forceps-like horns nearly as long as the rest of their armored, olive-green body.
beetleCluster Fly
A sluggish, dark fly covered in fine golden hairs that gathers by the hundreds on sun-warmed walls in autumn before slipping indoors to spend the winter.
fly
Common Sanddragon
A sand-colored clubtail dragonfly that perches flat on bare, sunlit riverbank sand, nearly vanishing against the grains around it.
dragonfly
Blue-winged Grasshopper
A drab, camouflaged grasshopper that startles onlookers with a sudden flash of bright blue hindwings the instant it takes flight.
grasshopper-cricket
Comet Moth (Madagascan Moon Moth)
One of the largest and most spectacular silk moths in the world, with pale yellow-to-red wings and extraordinarily long, ribbon-like tails on the hindwings.
moth