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.
Braconid Wasp
A tiny, often overlooked parasitoid wasp best known for laying eggs inside caterpillars and other insect hosts, sometimes leaving telltale clusters of small white cocoons on a host's back.
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Common Wasp
A black-and-yellow social wasp with a distinct anchor-shaped mark on its face, common around gardens and picnics in late summer as its colony reaches peak size and workers seek out sugary food.
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German Yellowjacket
A black-and-yellow social wasp closely resembling the common wasp, distinguished by three black facial dots, that builds large paper nests in wall voids and roof cavities and is widespread in both its native and introduced ranges.
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European Paper Wasp
A slender, orange-antennaed social wasp that builds small, open umbrella-shaped paper combs under eaves and ledges, now common well beyond its native European range.
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Mud Dauber Wasp
Slender, long-waisted wasps that build distinctive nests from mud, mud daubers stock their cells with paralyzed spiders. Their tube or urn-shaped mud nests are common under eaves and bridges.
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