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.
Metallic Wood-boring Beetle
The North American common name for jewel beetles, emphasizing the wood-tunneling habits of their larvae, which leave telltale flattened, D-shaped exit holes in bark of stressed or dying trees.
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Diving 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.
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Powderpost Beetle
A small, slender reddish-brown to dark brown beetle whose larvae tunnel through seasoned hardwood, reducing it internally to a fine, powdery frass.
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Deathwatch Beetle
A small, mottled brown wood-boring beetle famous for the faint ticking sound it makes by tapping its head against wood, historically associated with old timber-framed buildings.
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Mealworm Beetle
A shiny, oval, dark reddish-brown to nearly black beetle whose larva, the familiar 'mealworm,' is a common sight in stored grain products.
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Glowworm Beetle
A beetle whose females remain larva-like and glowing for their entire lives, producing rows of soft greenish light along their segmented, worm-like bodies, while males develop into small, feathery-antennaed flying beetles.
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Snout Beetle
A small beetle instantly recognized by its elongated, downward-curving snout, tipped with chewing mouthparts, used to bore into seeds, nuts, stems, or fruit.
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Furniture Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown to dark brown cylindrical beetle whose larvae, commonly called 'woodworm,' bore small round tunnels through seasoned furniture and timber.
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Asian Longhorned Beetle
A large, glossy black longhorn beetle patterned with irregular white spots and boldly banded blue-white antennae, notable as one of the largest and most eye-catching wood-boring beetles seen in temperate hardwood trees.
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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.
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Varied Carpet Beetle
A tiny beetle mottled with white, brown, and yellow scales that, as a fuzzy larva, quietly grazes on natural fibers tucked away in closets and attics.
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Water Penny Beetle
A flattened, coin-shaped larva that clings almost invisibly to the surface of submerged stream rocks, named for its uncanny resemblance to a small penny.
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Wireworm
Slender, shiny, and armor-hard, the wireworm is the long-lived soil-dwelling larva of a click beetle, spending years underground feeding on seeds, roots, and tubers before ever taking beetle form.
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Mealworm
A tan, segmented larva with a shiny hard exoskeleton that tunnels through stored grain and flour before transforming into a darkling beetle.
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Old House Borer
A grayish-brown to nearly black longhorn beetle whose larvae bore extensively through structural softwood, capable of causing large galleries hidden beneath the wood surface.
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Weevil
A beetle instantly recognizable by its elongated, downward-curving snout tipped with tiny chewing mouthparts, used to bore into seeds, nuts, grain, and plant stems.
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Grub Worm
A plump, C-shaped, creamy-white larva with a distinct brown head, living underground where it feeds on grass and plant roots before eventually maturing into a scarab beetle.
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Burying Beetle
A black beetle marked with bold orange-red bands, notable for locating small dead animals, burying them underground, and cooperatively raising larvae with a partner over the buried carcass.
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White 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.
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Pine Sawyer Beetle
A large, long-antennaed longhorn beetle of pine and spruce forests, mottled gray-brown to black, that produces a rasping sound when handled and whose larvae tunnel deep into dead or dying conifer wood.
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Two-Spotted Stink Bug
A boldly patterned black-and-orange predatory stink bug named for the pair of dark spots on its back, best known for hunting Colorado potato beetle larvae in gardens and fields.
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Rootworm
Working unseen below ground, rootworm larvae chew tunnels through the root systems of corn and other crops, the underground counterpart to the small, often striped or spotted beetles seen on leaves and flowers above.
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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.
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Black Vine Weevil
A flightless, all-black snout beetle notorious for notching the edges of leaves at night while its underground larvae feed on plant roots and crowns.
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