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.
Dog-Day Cicada
A stout, thick-bodied cicada with mottled green and brown camouflage patterning, named for its loud droning calls heard during the hot "dog days" of late summer.
true-bug
Diving Bell Spider
The world's only truly aquatic spider, famous for spinning an underwater silk bell that it fills with air, allowing it to live, hunt, and breed almost entirely submerged.
spider
Dance Fly
A slender, long-legged predatory fly named for the swarming courtship dances males perform at dusk, often while carrying a captured insect as an offering.
flyDiving Beetle Larva (Water Tiger)
Nicknamed the water tiger, the larva of a predaceous diving beetle is an elongated, sickle-jawed hunter that stalks the shallows and seizes prey many times its own size.
beetle
Death Watch Beetle
A mottled brown wood-boring beetle famous for the faint ticking sound it taps out inside old timbers, once thought by superstitious listeners to be an omen of death.
beetleDung Fly
A hairy, often golden-hued fly commonly seen perched on fresh manure in pastures, where it hunts smaller insects as an adult while its larvae develop within the dung itself.
fly
Boxelder Bug
A slender black true bug marked with three bold red-orange stripes on its thorax and red wing veins, famous for massing by the hundreds on tree trunks and sun-warmed walls in autumn.
true-bugCaterpillar
The soft-bodied, segmented larval stage of butterflies and moths, recognized by its worm-like shape, multiple pairs of stubby legs, and voracious appetite for leaves.
caterpillar-larva
Chinese Mantis
One of the largest praying mantises found in North America, an introduced species with a lean brown-and-green body and grasping spined forelegs built for ambushing insect prey.
mantis-stickBark Beetle
A tiny, cylindrical, dark-bodied beetle that tunnels beneath tree bark, leaving distinctive branching gallery patterns as the clearest sign of its presence.
beetle
Banded Garden Spider
A large orb weaver with a silvery, banded abdomen striped in yellow and black, spinning a distinctive zigzag stabilimentum through the center of its web.
spider
Anopheles Mosquito
A slim, mottled-winged mosquito best known for the distinctive head-down, tail-up posture it strikes while resting on walls and vegetation.
fly
Armyworm Moth
A plain tan to reddish-brown moth whose caterpillars are famous for marching in large groups across fields, stripping grasses and grain crops as they move.
moth
Azure Bluet
A sky-blue damselfly of quiet ponds, the Azure Bluet is named for its vivid blue coloration and is often seen resting in loose swarms over floating vegetation.
dragonfly
Water Measurer
Thin as a splinter and slow-stepping across the surface film, the water measurer creeps along pond edges spearing tiny prey with its needle-like snout.
true-bug
Vivid Dancer
A brilliant violet-blue damselfly of western streams, the Vivid Dancer is one of the most striking members of the dancer genus and is notably tolerant of warm, mineral-rich waters.
dragonfly
Trichogramma Wasp
Barely larger than a speck of dust, the trichogramma wasp is one of the tiniest insects known. These minute parasitoids lay their eggs inside the eggs of moths and butterflies.
wasp
Thorn Bug
A tiny treehopper whose greatly enlarged, thorn-shaped pronotum lets it disappear in plain sight among the real thorns of the branches it clusters on.
true-bug
Striped Bark Scorpion
A slender, tan scorpion marked with two bold dark stripes down its back, often found tucked under bark, rocks, or debris across the central United States.
arachnid
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
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.
butterfly
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.
beetleSilver-spotted Skipper
A large, chunky brown skipper instantly identified by the bold, translucent silvery-white patch splashed across the underside of each hindwing.
butterfly
Rosy Maple Moth
A small, plush-looking moth in candy-pink and lemon-yellow, often described as one of the most vividly colored moths in North America despite its modest size.
moth