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.
Angular-winged Katydid
A leaf-green katydid whose broad, leaf-shaped wings make it nearly invisible among tree foliage until its soft nighttime calls give it away.
grasshopper-cricketMayfly Nymph
A short-lived aquatic grazer with feathery gills along its abdomen, living for months underwater before a brief, spectacular mass emergence as a winged adult.
aquatic-insectKatydid
A leaf-mimicking insect with broad, veined green wings shaped remarkably like foliage, best known for the loud, rhythmic 'katy-did, katy-didn't' chorus males produce on warm summer nights.
grasshopper-cricketStonefly Nymph
A flattened, armored aquatic nymph that clings tightly to rocks in swift, cold streams, serving as one of the most reliable signs of pristine water quality.
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Dragonfly Nymph
A stocky, camouflaged underwater predator that spends months or years stalking prey along the pond bottom before transforming into an aerial dragonfly.
aquatic-insectDamselfly Nymph
A slender aquatic predator with three feathery tail gills, patiently stalking small prey among pond plants before emerging as a delicate flying damselfly.
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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.
butterflyMeadow Katydid
Small, slender, and beautifully camouflaged among grass blades, meadow katydids fill open fields and marsh edges with a soft, buzzy, insect-like ticking that blends into the summer evening background.
grasshopper-cricketCone-headed Katydid
A large, grass-colored katydid named for its sharply pointed, cone-shaped head, best known for producing some of the loudest, most sustained buzzing calls of any North American insect.
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Common True Katydid
A living leaf that spends its life high in the treetops, the common true katydid is far more often heard than seen, producing the loud, rasping "katy-did, katy-didn't" chorus that fills eastern summer nights.
grasshopper-cricketPicture-Winged Fly
A small fly whose clear wings are decorated with bold bands, spots, or intricate patterns, often waved and flicked in slow, deliberate displays that give the impression of a tiny fan being opened and closed. Some species even raise their patterned wings above the body and walk sideways in courtship displays reminiscent of a strutting peacock.
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Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
Slimmer and greener than its treetop relatives, the fork-tailed bush katydid lives among shrubs and garden plants, with males identified by the distinctive forked appendages at the tip of the abdomen that give the species its name.
grasshopper-cricketNet-winged Beetle
A soft-bodied beetle with broad, ridged wing covers patterned in bold orange or red and black bands, whose netlike wing venation and vivid coloring warn potential predators of its unpalatability.
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Golden-winged Skimmer
A large skimmer of southeastern wetlands, its wings brushed with a warm golden-amber wash along the leading edge that catches the light as it patrols still, sunlit water.
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Blue-winged Grasshopper
A drab, camouflaged grasshopper that startles onlookers with a sudden flash of bright blue hindwings the instant it takes flight.
grasshopper-cricketBand-winged Grasshopper
A camouflaged grasshopper that flashes vivid yellow, red, or blue hindwings in flight before vanishing again into the dust the instant it lands.
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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.
flyBush Cricket
Known by its long, thread-like antennae and evening chorus of chirps, this leaf-colored insect spends its life hidden among grass and foliage, often heard far more often than seen.
grasshopper-cricketFishfly Larva
A flattened, armor-plated predator of stream bottoms, the fishfly larva spends one to three years underwater seizing prey with sickle-shaped jaws before briefly taking wing as a short-lived winged adult.
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Speckled Bush Cricket
A tiny, plump, green insect finely dotted with dark speckles, this bush cricket forgoes song almost entirely, communicating instead through nearly silent, ultrasonic clicks.
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Roesel's Bush Cricket
Marked with a pale cream border along its thorax, this compact bush cricket produces a continuous, high-pitched, buzzing song reminiscent of an electrical hum from dense summer grass.
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Mormon Cricket
A hefty, flightless katydid whose swarms can stretch for miles across western rangelands, marching en masse in search of food and mates.
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Great Green Bush Cricket
Europe's largest bush cricket, this brilliant grass-green insect fills warm summer evenings with a loud, sustained buzzing call audible from a considerable distance.
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Great Golden Digger Wasp
A large, strikingly two-toned solitary wasp with a golden-haired thorax, reddish-orange midsection, and black-tipped abdomen, often seen digging burrows in bare soil to stock with paralyzed katydids and crickets.
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