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.
Webbing Clothes Moth
A small, plain golden-buff moth that avoids light and flutters weakly from dark closets, leaving silken webbing where its larvae have grazed on wool and fur.
moth
Weaver Ant
A tree-dwelling ant that builds its nest by stitching living leaves together with silk produced by its own larvae, forming elaborate arboreal colonies defended fiercely by its workers.
ant
Common Clothes Moth
A tiny, plain golden-buff moth that rarely flies far into open light, best known not for its adult form but for its silk-spinning larvae that chew holes in wool, fur, and feathers.
moth
Pine Processionary Moth
An unremarkable grey-brown moth known almost entirely through its larvae, which build large silken nests in pine trees and travel to feed in long, head-to-tail processions covered in fine defensive hairs.
moth
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
Mantidfly
A master of mimicry that pairs a praying mantis's raptorial front legs with the delicate, lacy wings of a true net-winged insect.
other
Green Grasshopper
A bright grass-green grasshopper with a rasping, sustained song, the common green grasshopper is one of the most familiar sounds of a European summer meadow.
grasshopper-cricket
Arizona Bark Scorpion
A slim, pale tan scorpion of the Sonoran Desert that climbs trees, walls, and even ceilings with equal ease thanks to its excellent grip.
arachnid
Itch Mite
A microscopic, rounded mite that spends its entire life cycle within the skin of a mammalian host, invisible without a microscope.
arachnid
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
Cobweb Spider
A common household spider that spins a messy, three-dimensional tangle of silk in dark corners and drags entangled insects up into the maze to feed.
spider
Indian Stick Insect
A slender, twig-mimicking insect so unremarkable in stillness that it disappears among the stems it feeds on, one of the most widely raised stick insects in the world.
mantis-stick
Dead Leaf Mantis
A master of disguise whose broad, curled, vein-textured body is nearly indistinguishable from a curled, decaying leaf lying on the forest floor.
mantis-stick
Culex Mosquito
A large, worldwide genus of plain brown mosquitoes recognizable by their blunt abdomens and habit of resting flat against surfaces.
fly
Field Cricket
A stout, dark cricket whose loud, rhythmic chirping is one of the most familiar summer and fall night sounds in fields and lawns across much of the world.
grasshopper-cricket
Face Fly
A house fly look-alike that clusters persistently around the eyes, muzzle, and face of grazing livestock to feed on moisture and secretions.
fly
Brimstone Butterfly
A sulphur-yellow, leaf-shaped butterfly whose folded wings mimic a fresh green leaf so convincingly it is often credited as the origin of the word 'butterfly'.
butterfly
Wall Spider
A tiny, flattened spider that spins a small disc-shaped web hugging the surface of a wall and darts sideways in a quick, erratic dash when disturbed.
spider
Question Mark Caterpillar
A spiny, variably colored caterpillar named for the silver question-mark-shaped mark on the underside of the adult butterfly's wings.
caterpillar-larva
Cabbage White Butterfly
A small, plain white butterfly with one or two black spots on each forewing and dark wingtips, one of the most common and widespread garden butterflies in the world.
butterfly
Giant Walking Stick
The longest insect in the United States, this brown, thread-thin giant sways gently on its perch to complete the illusion of a wind-stirred twig.
mantis-stick
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
Money Spider
A tiny sheet-weaving spider, often seen drifting through the air on silk threads, traditionally said to bring good luck when it lands on you.
spider
Spangled Skimmer
Named for the bright white 'spangles' at the base of its wings, the Spangled Skimmer pairs a powder-blue male body with crisp black-and-white wing markings.
dragonfly