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.
Odorous House Ant
A dark, unassuming ant best known for releasing a smell reminiscent of rotten coconut when a worker is crushed.
ant
House Ant
A small, dark brown to black ant that forages in loose trails along countertops and baseboards and releases a distinctive rotten-coconut smell when crushed.
ant
Ant
A small eusocial insect that lives in highly organized colonies, instantly recognizable by its narrow pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and single-file foraging trails.
ant
Fire Ant
A small reddish-brown ant that builds loose, crater-less dirt mounds in sunny open turf and mobilizes large numbers of workers rapidly when the nest is disturbed.
ant
Ghost Ant
A minuscule ant with a dark head and pale, nearly translucent legs and abdomen that seem to vanish against light-colored surfaces, giving the species its ghostly common name.
ant
Argentine Ant
A small, uniformly light-brown ant that forms enormous, cooperative supercolonies stretching across entire regions rather than defending small individual nests.
ant
Acrobat Ant
A small ant named for its habit of raising its distinctive heart-shaped abdomen up over its body like an acrobat when disturbed or alarmed.
ant
Black Garden Ant
A familiar small, glossy black ant that forms visible foraging trails across patios and garden paths and nests beneath stones, pavers, and lawns.
ant
Antlion
An insect best known for its larval stage, the doodlebug, which digs a small conical pit trap in loose sand to ambush unwary ants, while the winged adult resembles a slender, delicate damselfly.
other
Crazy Ant
A fast-moving, long-legged ant instantly recognizable by its erratic, non-stop scurrying in every direction rather than the orderly trails followed by most other ants.
ant
Sugar Ant
A common name for several large, sugar-loving ants, most famously the black-and-orange banded sugar ant of Australia, known for its persistent nighttime foraging around kitchens and picnics.
ant
Trap-Jaw Ant
A large, fast-moving ant with elongated, straight mandibles that snap shut faster than almost any other animal movement, used to strike prey or fling the ant itself out of danger.
ant
Velvet Ant
A densely fuzzy, brightly colored insect that looks like an oversized ant but is actually a wingless female wasp, instantly recognizable by its thick coat of red, orange, black, or white hair.
wasp
Carpenter Ant
A large, often shiny black ant that excavates smooth tunnels in dead or damp wood for nesting, recognizable by its size, evenly rounded thorax, and elbowed antennae.
ant
Leafcutter Ant
A highly organized ant famous for marching in long trails while carrying disc-shaped pieces of leaf many times their own size, which they use to cultivate fungus gardens deep underground.
ant
Broad-Headed Bug
A slender, dark true bug with a notably wide head, whose nymphs are remarkable ant mimics that scurry among leaf litter before maturing into fliers that resemble small leaf-footed bugs.
true-bug
Orange Tip
A dainty white butterfly whose males flash vivid orange wingtip patches, while both sexes show a beautifully marbled green-and-white pattern on the underwings.
butterfly
Falcate Orangetip
An early-spring white butterfly whose males flash bright orange wingtips, while both sexes show a distinctive hooked (falcate) forewing shape and marbled green underside pattern.
butterfly
Red Wood Ant
A large woodland ant with a reddish-brown thorax and dark abdomen, famous for building towering dome-shaped mounds of pine needles and twigs in forest clearings.
ant
Digger Bee
A robust, fast-flying, densely furry solitary bee that excavates tunnels in bare or sloped soil, often confused with bumble bees due to its bulky, hairy build and loud buzzing flight.
bee
Termite
A pale, soft-bodied social insect that lives in hidden colonies and feeds on cellulose in wood and plant debris, often mistaken for an ant despite belonging to an entirely different insect order.
other
Vaporer Moth
A tussock moth with dramatic sexual differences: the male is a small rusty-brown day-flying moth with a white wing spot, while the female is a flightless, wingless gray sac-like insect that never leaves her cocoon.
moth
Vapourer Moth
A small tussock moth with striking sexual dimorphism: rusty-orange, day-flying males with feathery antennae contrast with flightless, grub-like grey females that never leave their cocoon to lay eggs.
moth
Onion Fly
A slender gray fly closely related to houseflies whose white legless larvae bore into onion bulbs, feeding in clusters within a single rotting bulb.
fly