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.
Snowy Tree Cricket
Nicknamed the thermometer cricket, this pale, delicate insect sings a steady, rhythmic chirp whose pace rises and falls so predictably with temperature that its chirp rate can be used to estimate the air temperature.
grasshopper-cricketWhite Grub
A pale, C-shaped larva with a brown head capsule and six stubby legs, spending its entire early life hidden underground feeding on roots before emerging as a stout May or June beetle.
beetle
White Admiral
A large, dark butterfly crossed by a bold white band on both wings, the northern form of the same species that produces the iridescent blue Red-spotted Purple farther south.
butterfly
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
Checkered White
A white butterfly patterned with irregular gray-black checkered spots, commonly fluttering low over open, sunny, weedy fields across much of North America.
butterfly
Cabbage White
A common, small white butterfly with one or two black wing spots, whose green caterpillars are a familiar sight feeding on cabbage-family garden plants.
butterfly
West Virginia White
A delicate, pure-white spring butterfly of eastern hardwood forests with faint gray veining on the underside, flying only for a few weeks each year before its short-lived toothwort host plants fade.
butterfly
Great Southern White
A crisp white butterfly with contrasting black-and-white checkered wingtips, often seen in large numbers along coastal habitats and open fields of the southern United States.
butterfly
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
White Ermine Moth
A soft, fuzzy white moth speckled with small black dots, resembling the ermine fur trim after which it is named, commonly seen resting on vegetation or attracted to lights on summer nights.
mothCabbage White Caterpillar
A velvety, bright green caterpillar with a faint yellow stripe down its back, the larval stage of the common white butterfly seen fluttering around vegetable gardens.
caterpillar-larva
White-lined Sphinx Moth
A fast, hovering moth often mistaken for a hummingbird as it darts between flowers at dusk, identifiable by the bold cream-colored stripe running across each streamlined brown forewing.
moth
Redback Spider
A glossy black spider marked with a single bold red stripe down its back, the redback spider is one of Australia's most recognizable cobweb spiders, most often found tucked into dry, sheltered corners around homes and gardens.
spider
Giant Prickly Stick Insect
A hefty, spine-covered phasmid that mimics dead leaves and curled bark, and when threatened, arches its abdomen like a scorpion's tail in a dramatic bluff display.
mantis-stick
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-cricket
Whitefly
A tiny, moth-like white insect that clusters on the undersides of leaves and bursts into a snowy cloud when the plant is disturbed. Despite the name, it is not a true fly but a sap-feeding relative of aphids and scale insects.
true-bug
Goliath Stick Insect
One of the largest stick insects in the world, this vivid green giant unfurls startling crimson underwings when startled, briefly abandoning its disguise as foliage.
mantis-stickWeaver 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.
antRough Stink Bug
A gray-brown, textured stink bug with an irregular, jagged-edged outline that blends seamlessly against tree bark, making it one of the best-camouflaged members of its family.
true-bug
Bark Louse
A small, soft-bodied insect often seen in dense, moving herds on tree trunks, the bark louse grazes on algae, lichen, and fungal residue coating bark surfaces.
otherTreehopper
A small, oddly shaped sap-feeding bug best known for an enlarged, often bizarre pronotum extending backward over its body, sometimes shaped like a thorn, leaf, or spike.
true-bug
Ailanthus Silkmoth (Cynthia Moth)
A very large silkmoth with broad, tan-brown wings crossed by white, crescent-moon-shaped bands, closely associated with the fast-spreading tree-of-heaven that both feeds its larvae and carried the species around the world.
moth
Red-Shouldered Bug
A dark, flattened true bug with a bright red-orange collar across its shoulders, often seen clustering beneath goldenrain trees and other soapberry-family hosts.
true-bug
Bogong Moth
A modest brown, mottled moth famous for its extraordinary mass seasonal migration across thousands of kilometers to cool alpine caves in the Australian mountains, forming one of the largest known insect migrations by biomass.
moth