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.
Rocky Mountain Wood Tick
A robust, ornately patterned tick of the western mountains that clings to shrubs and grasses waiting to grab a passing mammal.
arachnid
Mosquito Larva
A wriggling, comma-shaped aquatic larva that hangs from the water's surface to breathe before transforming into a flying adult mosquito.
aquatic-insect
Cluster Fly
A sluggish, dark fly covered in fine golden hairs that gathers by the hundreds on sun-warmed walls in autumn before slipping indoors to spend the winter.
fly
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
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
Vine Weevil
A slow, flightless, matte-black beetle that hides by day and emerges at night to notch neat semicircular bites from the edges of leaves.
beetle
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
Wandering Spider
A large, fast-moving hunter that forages actively at night across leaf litter and low vegetation instead of relying on a web to catch its meals.
spider
Pirate Spider
A stealthy, spider-eating specialist that sneaks onto another spider's web, plucks the silk to mimic trapped prey, and ambushes the unsuspecting owner.
spider
Hoverfly
A slender, bee- or wasp-patterned fly known for its remarkable ability to hover motionless in midair before darting suddenly to a new flower.
fly
Comet Moth (Madagascan Moon Moth)
One of the largest and most spectacular silk moths in the world, with pale yellow-to-red wings and extraordinarily long, ribbon-like tails on the hindwings.
moth
Lesser Water Boatman
A flat-backed, oar-legged true bug that rows through pond water with fringed hind legs, surfacing periodically to trap a silvery bubble of air against its body.
true-bug
Cave Cricket
Humpbacked and wingless with absurdly long legs and antennae, this pale, silent insect thrives in the total darkness of caves, basements, and damp crawl spaces.
grasshopper-cricket
Grizzled Mantis
Mottled in shades of gray and lichen-green, this flattened mantis presses itself against tree bark so convincingly that it seems to melt into the trunk.
mantis-stick
Slaty Skimmer
A mature male Slaty Skimmer is powder-blue-gray from head to tail with jet-black wing tips, giving it a slate-colored, almost monochrome look as it patrols pond edges.
dragonfly
Blue-eyed Darner
A large, fast-flying darner with brilliant sky-blue eyes that meet in a seam across the top of the head, patrolling ponds and open fields well into the evening.
dragonfly
Common Wood-Nymph
A large brown grassland butterfly with a bold yellow patch and one or two prominent black eyespots on the forewing, known for its bouncing, low-to-the-ground flight.
butterfly
Peacock Spider
A tiny Australian jumping spider whose males unfurl a fan of vivid, iridescent colors and perform an elaborate rhythmic dance to court females.
spider
Common Earwig
A flattened, reddish-brown insect instantly recognizable by the pair of pincer-like forceps at the tip of its abdomen, which it uses for defense and to help fold its wings.
other
Whip Spider
A flattened, spider-like arachnid with no venom and no silk, using a pair of extremely long, whip-like front legs as sensitive feelers to navigate the dark.
arachnid
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
Plume Moth
A slender, long-legged moth that rests with its wings rolled tightly and held out at right angles to its body, forming a distinctive letter-T silhouette.
moth
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
Pillbug
A gray, armor-plated land crustacean that curls into a tight ball at the slightest touch, earning it the playful nickname "roly-poly."
other