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.
Mormon Cricket
A hefty, flightless katydid whose swarms can stretch for miles across western rangelands, marching en masse in search of food and mates.
grasshopper-cricket
Spotted Wing Drosophila
A tiny reddish-brown fruit fly, each male marked with a single dark spot near the wingtip, notable for laying eggs in ripening rather than overripe fruit.
fly
Mediterranean Flour Moth
A small, pale grey moth with fine dark wavy lines on its forewings, whose larvae spin webbing through flour, grain, and other stored dry food products, making it a well-known pest of mills and pantries.
moth
Spotted Lanternfly
A large, strikingly patterned planthopper with gray spotted forewings that flash to reveal crimson hindwings when it leaps or takes flight.
true-bug
Mourning Cloak
A dark, velvety maroon-brown butterfly edged with a ragged cream-yellow border and a row of iridescent blue spots, notable for overwintering as an adult and often being one of the very first butterflies seen flying in early spring.
butterfly
Spiny Orb Weaver
A small, hard-shelled orb weaver shaped like a tiny crab, with six sharp spines projecting from a brightly colored abdomen suspended in a neat wheel-shaped web.
spider
Migratory Locust
A grasshopper with a split personality, the migratory locust can switch from a quiet, solitary green insect into a boldly marked swarming form that travels in enormous, crop-devouring bands.
grasshopper-cricket
Red-legged Grasshopper
One of the most abundant and widespread grasshoppers in North America, the red-legged grasshopper is easily spotted by its reddish hind shins flashing amid a brown, mottled body.
grasshopper-cricket
Julia Butterfly
A brilliant, elongated-winged orange butterfly of tropical and subtropical habitats, with males glowing an intense unmarked orange and females showing subtler markings and a hint of black striping.
butterfly
Ruby Meadowhawk
A small, brilliant-red dragonfly of late summer meadows, so intensely colored that mature males seem to glow when perched low in the grass.
dragonfly
Luna Moth
A large, pale lime-green silk moth with long, elegant tails trailing from its hindwings, considered one of the most striking nocturnal insects in North America.
moth
Roesel's Bush Cricket
Marked with a pale cream border along its thorax, this compact bush cricket produces a continuous, high-pitched, buzzing song reminiscent of an electrical hum from dense summer grass.
grasshopper-cricketMarsh Fly
A slender, unassuming fly best known for larvae with a remarkable diet: nearly every species in the family feeds on aquatic or terrestrial snails and slugs, making marsh flies natural specialists in wetland food webs. Adults are often found resting quietly on sedges and other marsh vegetation near the water's edge.
fly
Rove Beetle
A slender, fast-running beetle with unusually short wing covers that leave much of its flexible abdomen exposed, often curling its tail upward like a scorpion when alarmed.
beetle
Luna Silkmoth
A large, pale lime-green silkmoth with long, trailing tails on its hindwings and delicate eyespots, widely regarded as one of the most striking moths in North America.
mothSmall Tortoiseshell
A vivid orange-red European garden butterfly patterned with black and yellow blocks and a border of blue crescents, one of the most familiar and widely recognized butterflies across its range.
butterfly
Long-Legged Fly
A jewel-bright little fly that flashes metallic green, blue, or bronze in the sunlight as it darts across leaves on comically long, stilt-like legs, pausing to perform quick territorial displays. Both adults and larvae are active hunters of even smaller insects, making this tiny fly a useful predator in gardens and wetlands alike.
flySand Wasp
A fast, sun-loving solitary wasp with large green or grayish eyes and yellow-striped markings that digs burrows in loose sand and provisions them almost entirely with flies.
waspMaggot
A pale, legless, tapering grub that wriggles through rotting food and organic waste, the larval stage of a fly.
caterpillar-larva
Six-spot Burnet Moth
A day-flying moth with glossy black-green forewings marked by six bold red spots and vivid crimson hindwings, a striking warning-colored insect often mistaken for a butterfly as it visits summer wildflowers.
moth
Metallic Wood-boring Beetle
The North American common name for jewel beetles, emphasizing the wood-tunneling habits of their larvae, which leave telltale flattened, D-shaped exit holes in bark of stressed or dying trees.
beetle
Small Emperor Moth
A striking day-flying moth with large eyespots on all four wings, gray-brown coloring in males and paler gray in the larger females, native to heathlands and open countryside across Europe.
moth
Mexican Bean Beetle
A copper-colored, spotted beetle resembling an overgrown ladybird that feeds on bean plant leaves along with its spiny yellow larvae.
beetle
Silverfish
A wingless, silvery-gray insect with a tapered, fish-like body and three long tail bristles, known for its quick, darting movements and preference for dark, humid hiding spots.
other
Meadow Spittlebug
A small, mottled hopping true bug whose immature nymphs are far more often noticed than the adults, hidden inside frothy blobs of white foam known as cuckoo spit on plant stems.
true-bug
Small Milkweed Bug
A red-and-black seed bug with a distinctive X-shaped pattern on its back, commonly found feeding on milkweed seeds and sap alongside monarch caterpillars.
true-bug
Leafhopper
A small, wedge-shaped insect that darts sideways and springs away in quick hops when disturbed, often brightly striped or patterned and found clinging to the underside of leaves.
true-bug
Speckled Wood
A dappled brown-and-cream butterfly that thrives in the sun-flecked shade of woodland edges, where it perches on sunlit leaves to defend its territory.
butterflyMesh 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
Screech Beetle
This small, oval water beetle earns its name from the loud squeak it produces when picked up, a sound made by rubbing internal body parts together rather than by any vocal organ.
beetleLubber 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
Sphinx Moth
A large, streamlined, fast-flying moth with narrow triangular wings and a robust, tapering body, famous for hovering at flowers at dusk like a hummingbird.
moth
Locust Borer
A slender black longhorn beetle boldly striped with yellow, closely resembling a wasp, commonly seen visiting goldenrod flowers in autumn near black locust trees.
beetle
Scorpionfly
A harmless scavenger whose alarming name comes from the male's swollen, upturned abdominal tip, which curls like a scorpion's tail but carries no sting.
other
Marsh Treader
An extremely slender, thread-like true bug that walks slowly and deliberately across the water's surface on stilt-like legs, resembling a tiny floating twig as it hunts among marsh vegetation.
aquatic-insect
Scorpion
An ancient, armored arachnid with grasping pincers and a segmented tail carried curled over its back, tipped with a stinger used to subdue prey.
arachnid
Long-jawed Orb Weaver
A slender, stick-like spider with oversized jaws that stretches its legs flat along a stem or spins a loose orb web low over water.
spider
Silver Y Moth
A fast-flying, day-active noctuid moth named for the metallic silver Y- or gamma-shaped mark on each mottled grey-brown forewing, famous for its long-distance migratory flights.
moth
Longhorn Beetle
A beetle instantly recognizable by antennae often longer than its own body, ranging from small woodland species to large, dramatically patterned tropical and temperate forms.
beetle
Sacred Scarab
A stout, matte-black dung beetle famous for rolling balls of dung across the ground with its hind legs, and revered in Ancient Egypt as a symbol of the sun and renewal.
beetle
Lappet Moth
A large, richly textured moth with deeply scalloped, russet-brown wings that fold into an uncanny dead-leaf silhouette, one of the most convincing leaf mimics among European moths.
moth
Snail
A shelled land mollusk that carries a coiled, calcium-carbonate shell on its back and glides slowly across damp gardens and vegetation on a slime-lubricated foot.
otherMayfly
A delicate insect with upright, sail-like wings and long, thread-thin tail filaments, famous for emerging by the millions in brief, synchronized swarms before dying within a day or two.
aquatic-insectSnipe Fly
A slender, long-legged fly often seen perched head-down on a sunny tree trunk or fence post, patiently watching for smaller insects to ambush. Its tapered, wasp-like abdomen and habit of resting motionless with legs splayed give it a distinctive, almost sentry-like posture in woodland clearings.
fly
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
Soldier Beetle
A slender, soft-bodied beetle in orange and black or yellow and brown, often seen clustered on late-summer flowers where it feeds on pollen, nectar, and small insects.
beetle
Little Yellow
A tiny, pale lemon-yellow butterfly with a thin, crisp black wing border, fluttering close to the ground in fields and roadsides across the southern and eastern United States.
butterfly
Southern Green Stink Bug
A large, shield-shaped, solid bright green true bug found on a wide variety of garden and crop plants across warm regions worldwide, recognizable by its broad body and, in some individuals, a row of small pale dots along the shoulders.
true-bug