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.
Black Vine Weevil
A flightless, all-black snout beetle notorious for notching the edges of leaves at night while its underground larvae feed on plant roots and crowns.
beetle
Japanese Beetle
A small, iridescent beetle with a metallic green head and thorax and coppery-bronze wing covers, notorious for skeletonizing the leaves of roses, grapevines, and hundreds of other garden plants.
beetle
Bumble Bee Queen
The large, robust foundress of a bumble bee colony, noticeably bigger and fuzzier than her worker offspring, seen alone in early spring searching for a nesting cavity before her colony's first workers emerge.
bee
Longhorn Bee
A fuzzy, medium-sized solitary bee named for the males' notably long, curved antennae, commonly seen foraging on sunflowers, asters, and other late-summer composite flowers.
bee
Blue Morpho Butterfly
A dazzling, hand-sized rainforest butterfly whose wings flash brilliant metallic blue in flight, an effect created not by pigment but by microscopic light-bending scales.
butterfly
Hackberry Emperor
A brown-and-cream butterfly closely tied to hackberry trees, notable for its bold eyespots and habit of landing on people, cars, and other unusual surfaces rather than flowers.
butterfly
Oriental Cockroach
A dark, matte blackish-brown cockroach with short wings that do not cover the abdomen, especially in females, and a preference for cooler, damper hiding spots than most other common cockroaches.
other
Asian Longhorned Beetle
A large, glossy black longhorn beetle patterned with irregular white spots and boldly banded blue-white antennae, notable as one of the largest and most eye-catching wood-boring beetles seen in temperate hardwood trees.
beetle
Fall Armyworm
A brownish-green caterpillar marked with a pale inverted "Y" on its head, notorious for rapid, large-scale outbreaks that devastate corn and other grass crops across the globe.
caterpillar-larva
Fall Webworm
A pale, hairy caterpillar that spins loose, messy silk webs enclosing entire leaf clusters at the tips of tree branches, becoming especially noticeable in late summer and fall.
caterpillar-larva
Hornet
A large, robust social wasp with a reddish-brown and yellow patterned body, notably bigger than yellowjackets, building enclosed papery nests often high in tree cavities or wall voids.
wasp
Lanternfly (Spotted Lanternfly)
A strikingly patterned planthopper with grey, spotted forewings that flash to reveal crimson hindwings when it leaps, now notorious as an invasive agricultural pest far from its native range.
true-bug
Northern Bluet
A hardy blue damselfly of northern ponds and lakes, the Northern Bluet ranges farther north than most of its relatives and is often the dominant bluet at cooler, higher-latitude waters.
dragonfly
Cicada Killer's Prey Cicada
A large, thick-bodied, clear-winged insect best known for the loud, buzzing chorus males produce from treetops on hot summer afternoons, and a preferred prey item of the cicada killer wasp.
true-bug
Green Lynx Spider
A slender, bright green spider armed with long spiny legs that ambushes insects from flowers and shrubs without spinning a capture web.
spider
Tube Web Spider
A sleek, cylindrical spider that lives inside a silk-lined tube and dashes out to seize insects that stumble across its radiating trip-lines.
spider
Mesh Web Weaver
A tiny, easily overlooked spider that spins a loose, bluish tangle of fuzzy silk over twig tips and seed heads to snare small insects.
spider
Psyllid
A tiny, sap-sucking hopper that resembles a miniature cicada and springs away in a blur when its host leaf is disturbed.
true-bug
Tarantula Hawk Wasp
A giant metallic-blue wasp with rust-orange wings, the tarantula hawk is one of the largest wasps in the world. Females hunt tarantulas as living food for their single offspring.
wasp
Alderfly
A small, dusky-winged insect that flutters weakly among streamside alders and shrubs, the diminutive relative of the mighty dobsonfly.
aquatic-insect
Firebrat
A fast, wingless, mottled gray-brown insect with long antennae and tail bristles that thrives in the warm, humid corners near ovens, boilers, and pipes.
other
Common Green Darner
A large green-and-blue dragonfly and the official state insect of Washington, best known among dragonfly watchers for an annual migration that spans multiple generations.
dragonfly
Polyphemus Moth
A large tan-to-golden-brown silkmoth named for the mythological one-eyed giant, thanks to the single large, transparent eyespot on each hindwing that flashes into view when the moth is startled.
moth
Cave Cricket
Humpbacked and wingless with absurdly long legs and antennae, this pale, silent insect thrives in the total darkness of caves, basements, and damp crawl spaces.
grasshopper-cricket