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.
Purseweb Spider
A secretive, tube-dwelling spider that spends nearly its entire life hidden inside a silk-lined burrow extension camouflaged with soil and debris on the surface.
spider
Bess Beetle
A large, glossy jet-black beetle that lives in family groups inside rotting logs, communicating with fellow beetles through squeaks and cooperating to raise larvae, an unusually social lifestyle for an insect of its kind.
beetle
Leafcutter Bee
A stout, dark-bodied bee best known not for how it looks but for the neat, circular or oval notches it cuts from leaves, which it uses to line and seal its nest cells.
beeArmy Ant
A nomadic predator that never builds a permanent nest, instead forming temporary living bivouacs from its own linked bodies and sweeping through the forest floor in massive predatory raids.
antBot Fly
A stocky, bumblebee-mimicking fly whose adults never feed and live only long enough to mate and locate a rodent or rabbit burrow for their eggs. Despite their harmless, buzzing adult stage, bot flies are best known through the larvae that develop as internal parasites of small mammals.
flyMarsh 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
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
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.
flyTube 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
Yellow-spotted Millipede
A striking black millipede lined with bright yellow-orange spots along its flanks, one of the most recognizable invertebrates of the Pacific coast's damp forest floors.
myriapod
Stone Centipede
A quick, flattened, reddish-brown centipede that darts for cover the instant its stone or log shelter is lifted, one of the most commonly seen centipedes in temperate gardens.
myriapod
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
Tarantula
The tarantula is the heavyweight of the spider world, a densely furred, ground-hugging hunter that spends most of its long life waiting in a silk-lined burrow for prey to wander past.
spider
Viceroy Butterfly
An orange-and-black butterfly closely resembling the monarch, distinguished by a smaller size and a distinctive black line crossing the veins of the hindwing, and long cited as a classic example of mimicry between two unrelated species.
butterfly
Wool Carder Bee
A stocky, yellow-and-black solitary bee named for its habit of scraping soft plant fibers from fuzzy leaves to line its nest, with territorial males that aggressively patrol and defend flower patches.
bee
Sydney Funnel-web Spider
Glossy black and heavily built, with large fangs held ready in front of its face, the Sydney funnel-web spider shelters in a silk-lined burrow in moist, shaded ground across the Sydney region, one of Australia's most distinctive ground-dwelling spiders.
spider
Wolf Spiderling
A tiny, fast-moving juvenile wolf spider, often seen riding in dozens on its mother's back before dispersing to hunt on its own across open ground.
spider
Cottonwood Borer
A large, boldly patterned longhorn beetle in black and chalky white checkerboard markings, often found clinging to the trunks of cottonwood and poplar trees near its larvae's root tunnels.
beetle
Zebra Longwing
A slow-flying, long-winged black butterfly striped boldly with yellow, unusual among butterflies for feeding on pollen as an adult, which extends its lifespan to several months.
butterfly
Familiar Bluet
One of the most widespread and abundant damselflies in North America, the Familiar Bluet's slender sky-blue and black body is a near-constant sight over ponds and lakes in warm months.
otherCave Spider
A long-legged orb weaver adapted to the twilight zone of caves, spinning large webs across cavern mouths and dangling its egg sacs from silk threads deep within the darkness.
spiderMarch Fly
A stout, all-black fly that emerges in sudden, dense swarms during the first warm days of spring, often dangling its long hind legs conspicuously in slow, low flight over grass. Its name comes from its habit of appearing reliably around the start of the month, sometimes on cue near a particular saint's feast day in the traditional European calendar.
fly