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.
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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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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Acorn Weevil
A small brown weevil with an extraordinarily long, thread-thin snout, often longer than its own body, which it uses to drill into developing acorns before laying its eggs inside.
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Vine Weevil
A slow, flightless, matte-black beetle that hides by day and emerges at night to notch neat semicircular bites from the edges of leaves.
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Boll Weevil
A small, grayish-brown snout beetle with a long, curved rostrum, historically famous for its close feeding association with cotton flower buds and bolls.
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Rice Weevil
A tiny reddish-brown weevil with a long curved snout and four faint pale spots on its wing covers, commonly found infesting stored rice, wheat, and other grain products.
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Granary Weevil
A small, shiny, dark reddish-brown to black weevil with a long curved snout that is unable to fly, spending its entire life cycle within stores of wheat and other cereal grains.
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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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Whitefringed Beetle
A stout gray-brown weevil named for the pale, fringe-like stripe along the outer edge of its wing covers, whose root-feeding larvae are a recognized issue in pastures and row crops.
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Diving Beetle
A smooth, streamlined, dark-bodied beetle with broad, fringed hind legs built for swimming, an active underwater predator that carries its own air supply beneath its wing covers.
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Scarab Beetle
A broad, often glossy beetle family recognized by its distinctive fan-like clubbed antennae, ranging from tiny dung-rollers to massive horned giants, found on every continent except Antarctica.
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American Carrion Beetle
A broad, flattened black beetle with a striking pale yellow shield behind its head, commonly found on and around small animal carcasses where it feeds alongside fly larvae.
beetleNet-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.
beetleLily Leaf Beetle
A brilliant scarlet-red beetle with a jet-black head, legs, and underside that feeds almost exclusively on true lilies and fritillaries, often stripping leaves down to bare stems.
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Drugstore Beetle
A tiny brown beetle with grooved wing covers that once earned its name by burrowing into dried herbs and medicines kept on pharmacy shelves.
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Asian Lady Beetle
A highly variable orange-to-red ladybird beetle, often bearing many black spots or none at all, famous for swarming into homes in large numbers during autumn.
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Water Measurer
Thin as a splinter and slow-stepping across the surface film, the water measurer creeps along pond edges spearing tiny prey with its needle-like snout.
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Moth
A broad group of scale-winged insects related to butterflies, typically nocturnal, with stout, often furry bodies and feathery or thread-like antennae.
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Mole Cricket
A stout, velvety brown cricket relative with broad, shovel-like front legs adapted for digging, spending most of its life burrowing just beneath the surface of moist soil.
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Drain Fly
A tiny, fuzzy gray-tan fly with broad, moth-like wings held tent-fashion over its body, often seen resting motionless on bathroom walls near drains.
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Halloween Pennant
With broad orange-amber wings banded in dark brown, this dragonfly perches conspicuously atop tall grass stems, swaying like a small flag in the breeze.
dragonflyCreeping Water Bug
Broad, oval, and flattened like a tiny shield, the creeping water bug crawls methodically through submerged vegetation rather than swimming freely, using its stout, raptorial front legs to seize prey.
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Widow Skimmer
A medium-sized dragonfly named for the broad, dark mourning-veil-like patches at the base of its wings, seen perched on shoreline vegetation across much of North America.
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Green Stink Bug
A broad, shield-shaped bug in solid bright green with a shell-like appearance, easily disturbed off host plants and known for releasing a pungent odor when handled.
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