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.
Regal Fritillary
A large, showy prairie butterfly with bright orange forewings and dramatically contrasting black hindwings dotted with rows of white and cream spots.
butterfly
Barn Spider
A brownish, mottled orb weaver famous as the inspiration for Charlotte's Web, commonly found spinning large nightly webs on barns, porches, and other structures.
spider
Tiger Centipede
A large, banded desert centipede with alternating dark and pale segments reminiscent of tiger stripes, capable of a fast, muscular scuttle across sand and rock.
myriapod
Armyworm Moth
A plain tan to reddish-brown moth whose caterpillars are famous for marching in large groups across fields, stripping grasses and grain crops as they move.
moth
Atlas Beetle
A large, glossy black-to-metallic rhinoceros beetle in which males bear three long curved horns used for combat over food and mates.
beetle
Honeybee
A fuzzy, golden-brown and black social bee that lives in large colonies, builds wax honeycomb, and is the primary managed pollinator of crops and wildflowers worldwide.
bee
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
Swallowtail Butterfly
A large, showy butterfly named for the elongated, tail-like extensions on its hindwings, often seen gliding gracefully around gardens and flowering meadows.
butterfly
Polyphemus Moth Caterpillar
A plump, apple-green giant silk moth larva with rows of silvery spots that swells to the size of a large finger before spinning a papery brown cocoon.
caterpillar-larva
Cloudless Sulphur
A large, bright lemon-yellow butterfly that flies with strong, direct wingbeats and rarely shows any dark markings, giving it an almost uniformly 'cloudless' appearance.
butterfly
Red Wood Ant
A large woodland ant with a reddish-brown thorax and dark abdomen, famous for building towering dome-shaped mounds of pine needles and twigs in forest clearings.
ant
African Mantis
A large, sturdy green or brown mantis frequently found perched on garden shrubs, patiently scanning for insect prey with its sharply angled triangular head.
mantis-stick
Harvester Ant
A large, industrious desert ant that clears a bare, sunburned disk of ground around its nest entrance while collecting and storing seeds by the thousands.
ant
Wandering Spider
A large, fast-moving hunter that forages actively at night across leaf litter and low vegetation instead of relying on a web to catch its meals.
spider
Carpenter Bee
A large, robust bee closely resembling a bumblebee but with a shiny, mostly bald black abdomen, known for excavating tunnel nests into bare, untreated wood.
bee
Great Southern White
A crisp white butterfly with contrasting black-and-white checkered wingtips, often seen in large numbers along coastal habitats and open fields of the southern United States.
butterfly
Diana Fritillary
A large southern Appalachian fritillary famous for extreme sexual dimorphism — males are burnt-orange and black while females are an iridescent blue-black that mimics a distasteful swallowtail.
butterfly
American Grasshopper
A large, strong-flying grasshopper related to the locusts of the Old World, the American grasshopper can occasionally form dense, damaging aggregations across the southern United States.
grasshopper-cricket
Tent Caterpillar
A social, blue-striped caterpillar that builds a conspicuous silken tent in the fork of a tree branch, sheltering large colonies of siblings that emerge together to feed on leaves.
caterpillar-larva
Blue-eyed Darner
A large, fast-flying darner with brilliant sky-blue eyes that meet in a seam across the top of the head, patrolling ponds and open fields well into the evening.
dragonfly
Lubber Grasshopper
Heavy-bodied and slow-moving, lubber grasshoppers make up for their poor flying ability with large size, bold coloring, and a lumbering, ground-bound lifestyle.
grasshopper-cricket
Amazonian Giant Centipede
The largest centipede on the planet, a formidable dark reddish-brown predator from South American rainforests capable of capturing prey as large as bats and small reptiles.
myriapod
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
A large, showy yellow-and-black striped swallowtail with elegant tail extensions on the hindwings, one of the most recognizable butterflies of eastern North American woodlands and gardens.
butterfly
Squash Beetle
A large, coppery-orange, spotted beetle that resembles an oversized ladybird but, unlike most of its relatives, feeds on squash and pumpkin leaves rather than aphids.
beetle