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.
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
Yellow Scorpion
A robust, sandy-yellow scorpion of arid regions that spends daylight hours buried or hidden beneath stones, emerging at dusk to hunt.
arachnid
Fire Ant Queen
The reproductive powerhouse of a fire ant colony, noticeably larger than the reddish worker ants and equipped with wings before she sheds them to found a new nest.
ant
Asian Giant Hornet
The world's largest hornet, an imposing orange-and-black wasp with a wide head and long stinger, best known for raiding honey bee colonies to feed its brood.
wasp
Codling Moth Larva
The classic 'worm in the apple,' this pinkish-white caterpillar tunnels straight to the core of apples and pears, leaving a telltale frass-plugged entry hole behind.
caterpillar-larva
Fruit Fly (Vinegar Fly)
A tiny tan fly with bright red eyes that seems to appear from nowhere the moment a piece of fruit begins to overripen or a splash of wine is left uncovered.
fly
Acorn Weevil
A small brown weevil with an extraordinarily long, thread-thin snout, often longer than its own body, which it uses to drill into developing acorns before laying its eggs inside.
beetle
Sun Spider
A fast-running, fiercely built desert arachnid with oversized jaws, often mistaken for a giant spider despite belonging to an entirely different arachnid order.
arachnid
Fragile Forktail
One of North America's smallest and most delicate damselflies, the Fragile Forktail is best known for the pale green exclamation-point mark on top of its thorax.
dragonfly
Phorid Fly
A tiny, hump-backed fly best known for scuttling erratically across countertops and floors rather than taking flight, drawn to anything rotting or moist.
fly
Southern Flannel Moth (Puss Caterpillar Moth)
A small, densely furred tan-to-orange moth best known for its unusual larva, a soft-looking, cat-tailed caterpillar whose fluffy coat hides rows of venomous spines.
moth
Fishing Spider
One of the largest spiders in North America, the fishing spider can walk on water, dive beneath the surface to escape danger, and ambush small fish and tadpoles with its front legs from the water's edge.
spider
Eyed Hawk-Moth
A pinkish-brown hawk-moth that reveals a pair of large, blue-and-black eyespots on its hindwings when threatened, using the sudden flash of "eyes" to startle would-be predators.
moth
Assassin Bug
A slender, long-legged predatory true bug with a curved, needle-like beak used to ambush and pierce other insects, often patterned in bold orange, black, or red warning colors.
true-bug
Antlion
An insect best known for its larval stage, the doodlebug, which digs a small conical pit trap in loose sand to ambush unwary ants, while the winged adult resembles a slender, delicate damselfly.
other
Cricket
A dark, round-headed jumping insect best known for the rhythmic chirping song produced by males rubbing their forewings together, often heard rather than seen after dusk.
grasshopper-cricket
Giant Centipede
A long, fast-moving, many-legged predator with a hardened segmented body and a pair of venom-injecting claws behind the head that it uses to overpower prey far larger than itself.
myriapod
Termite
A pale, soft-bodied social insect that lives in hidden colonies and feeds on cellulose in wood and plant debris, often mistaken for an ant despite belonging to an entirely different insect order.
other
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
Nursery Web Spider
Named for the silken nursery tent females weave to guard their hatching young, this slender, long-legged spider carries her large egg sac beneath her body in her fangs until the eggs are ready to hatch.
spider
Walking Stick
A remarkably twig-like insect with a long, slender, brown to green body and thin legs, so effective at mimicking a plant stem that it can be nearly invisible while motionless on vegetation.
mantis-stick
Rosy Apple Aphid
A small, dusty pink to purplish-gray aphid that clusters on apple foliage in spring, causing distinctive curled, reddened leaves that make its presence easy to spot even before the insects themselves are seen.
true-bug
Silkworm
Plump, pale, and utterly dependent on humans, the silkworm is the domesticated caterpillar behind thousands of years of silk production, spinning a single continuous thread of silk to form its cocoon.
caterpillar-larva
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