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.
House Dust Mite
A microscopic, translucent mite that lives unseen in household dust, feeding on shed skin flakes accumulated in bedding and furniture.
arachnid
Chicken Mite
A tiny, blood-feeding mite that hides in cracks and crevices of poultry housing by day and emerges at night to feed on roosting birds, turning a dull gray to deep red after a blood meal.
arachnid
Corn Earworm Moth
A tan to olive-colored moth whose caterpillar, the corn earworm, is one of the most economically significant crop pests in North America, feeding inside corn ears, tomatoes, and cotton bolls.
moth
Black Fly Larva
Anchored to submerged rocks in fast-flowing streams by a silken thread, the black fly larva bends into the current and combs the water for drifting particles with a pair of delicate, fan-shaped feeding brushes.
aquatic-insect
Dust Mite
A microscopic, translucent arachnid that lives unseen in household dust, feeding quietly on shed skin flakes within mattresses, carpets, and furniture.
arachnid
Green Drake Mayfly
Famous among anglers for triggering explosive trout feeding frenzies, the Green Drake Mayfly is a large, striking insect whose brief springtime emergence is one of the most anticipated events on many rivers.
aquatic-insect
Gall Mite
An almost worm-shaped, microscopic mite that induces plants to grow strange pouches, pockets, and felt-like patches around its feeding sites.
arachnid
Onion Fly
A slender gray fly closely related to houseflies whose white legless larvae bore into onion bulbs, feeding in clusters within a single rotting bulb.
fly
Milkweed Tussock Caterpillar
Rows of dense orange, black, and white hair tufts run down the back of this milkweed specialist, whose young larvae feed in tight groups that skeletonize milkweed leaves before dispersing to feed alone.
caterpillar-larva
Mourning Cloak Caterpillar
A gregarious, velvety black caterpillar speckled with white dots and a striking row of brick-red spots down its back, often seen feeding in clusters on willow branches.
caterpillar-larva
Grape Leaffolder Caterpillar
This small green caterpillar stitches grape leaves together with silk into a rolled shelter, feeding hidden inside its own leafy tube and leaving skeletonized patches behind.
caterpillar-larva
Cotton Bollworm
A variably colored caterpillar, ranging from green to brown to nearly pink, that burrows into cotton bolls, corn ears, and tomato fruit, feeding concealed inside the very structures it damages.
caterpillar-larva
Tachinid Fly
A bristly, house-fly-like insect that looks unremarkable at a glance but hides one of the most important ecological roles among flies: its larvae develop as internal parasites of caterpillars, beetles, and other insects, quietly regulating populations across the landscape. Gardeners often welcome tachinid flies as natural allies against crop-damaging pests.
fly
Great Purple Hairstreak
The largest and most iridescent hairstreak in North America, with brilliant blue-green upperwings, red-orange spots on the body and wing base, and long twin tails, its caterpillars feeding on parasitic mistletoe clumps in host trees.
butterfly
Two-Spotted Spider Mite
A near-microscopic mite that spins fine silk webbing over leaves as it feeds, leaving foliage stippled and pale.
arachnid
Root 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
Face Fly
A house fly look-alike that clusters persistently around the eyes, muzzle, and face of grazing livestock to feed on moisture and secretions.
fly
Soft Tick
A wrinkled, leathery, bean-shaped tick that hides by day in nests and cracks, emerging briefly at night to feed and then vanish again.
arachnid
Tick
A small, flattened, oval arachnid with a hard shield-like plate on its back that waits on vegetation and attaches to passing hosts to feed on blood, swelling considerably once fed.
arachnid
Screwworm Fly
A metallic blue-green blowfly whose larvae are unusual among maggots for feeding on living tissue rather than carrion, drawn to even small open wounds on warm-blooded animals. The species has been the target of one of the most successful large-scale insect eradication campaigns in history across much of North America.
fly
Bed Bug
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless insect shaped like an apple seed that hides in mattress seams and bed frames by day and emerges at night to feed.
true-bug
Cobweb Spider
A common household spider that spins a messy, three-dimensional tangle of silk in dark corners and drags entangled insects up into the maze to feed.
spider
Javanese Leaf Insect
A broad, veined, leaf-green body makes this insect nearly indistinguishable from the foliage it feeds on, a masterclass in disguise native to the forests of Southeast Asia.
mantis-stick
Greenhead Fly
A stout, strikingly green-eyed horse fly that emerges from Atlantic salt marshes in midsummer swarms, where the females bite to feed on blood.
fly