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.
Elm Leaf Beetle
A yellow-green leaf beetle with dark side stripes that skeletonizes elm foliage and gathers in large numbers to overwinter in buildings.
beetle
Widow Skimmer
A medium-sized dragonfly named for the broad, dark mourning-veil-like patches at the base of its wings, seen perched on shoreline vegetation across much of North America.
dragonflyRecluse Spider
A pale, unassuming spider recognized by its dark violin-shaped marking and unusual six-eyed arrangement, spending most of its time hidden in quiet, undisturbed corners.
spider
Giant Swallowtail
The largest butterfly in North America, a dark brown giant marked with a bold diagonal yellow band and yellow spotting that forms an X-like pattern when the wings are spread.
butterfly
Ghost Ant
A minuscule ant with a dark head and pale, nearly translucent legs and abdomen that seem to vanish against light-colored surfaces, giving the species its ghostly common name.
ant
Twenty-plume Moth
A tiny, unusual moth whose wings are each divided into numerous slender, feather-like plumes rather than solid membranes, giving it a delicate, fringed appearance unlike almost any other moth.
moth
Scarab Beetle
A broad, often glossy beetle family recognized by its distinctive fan-like clubbed antennae, ranging from tiny dung-rollers to massive horned giants, found on every continent except Antarctica.
beetle
Eastern Tailed-Blue
A tiny gossamer-wing butterfly with a delicate thread-like tail on each hindwing and a small orange spot near the tail base, common in open weedy habitats throughout the eastern half of North America.
butterfly
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
Yellow Fever Mosquito
A dark mosquito marked with a lyre-shaped pattern of white scales on its thorax, closely tied to human dwellings and the water-filled containers people leave standing around them.
fly
Webbing Clothes Moth
A small, plain golden-buff moth that avoids light and flutters weakly from dark closets, leaving silken webbing where its larvae have grazed on wool and fur.
moth
Northern Pearly-eye
A shade-loving brown woodland butterfly with rows of dark, pale-ringed eyespots, more often seen resting on tree trunks in forest gaps than flying in open sun.
butterfly
Blue-fronted Dancer
A bright blue head and thorax paired with a dark, blue-tipped abdomen give the Blue-fronted Dancer its name, as it hops and flutters along sunny riverbanks in loose groups.
other
Black Saddlebags
A large, nearly all-black dragonfly with a bold dark patch draped across the base of each hindwing, patrolling high over ponds and open ground like a small kite.
dragonfly
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
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
Diving Beetle
A smooth, streamlined, dark-bodied beetle with broad, fringed hind legs built for swimming, an active underwater predator that carries its own air supply beneath its wing covers.
aquatic-insect
Brown Marmorated Stink Bug
An invasive, mottled brown stink bug identified by alternating light and dark bands on its antennae and abdomen edges, well known for gathering in large numbers on and inside buildings each fall.
true-bug
Caddisfly
A moth-like insect whose larvae are famous for constructing portable protective cases out of silk and whatever sand, twigs, or debris they can find.
aquatic-insectTiger Swallowtail Caterpillar
A smooth green caterpillar with a swollen thorax marked by two large fake eyespots, giving it an uncanny resemblance to a tiny snake's head.
caterpillar-larvaPhantom Midge Larva
Almost invisible in open water, the phantom midge larva is a slender, transparent predator that drifts through the water column, using a pair of internal gas-filled sacs to hover at precise depths while hunting tiny prey.
aquatic-insectTube 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
European Mantis
A slender, typically bright green mantis native to Europe, Africa, and Asia, now widely established in North America, easily recognized by a small dark bullseye mark on the inside of its front legs.
mantis-stick
Deer Tick
A small, dark-legged tick with a reddish-brown, teardrop-shaped body, noticeably smaller than many other common tick species and often found questing in wooded or grassy edge habitats.
arachnid