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.
Chigger
A nearly microscopic mite larva that waits in clusters on grass tips for a passing host, taking a single brief meal before dropping away unseen. Only this larval stage is parasitic; the free-living adult spends its life hunting tiny prey in the soil.
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Water Mite
A brilliantly colored, ball-shaped mite that swims through freshwater ponds and streams using fringed, oar-like legs.
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Itch Mite
A microscopic, rounded mite that spends its entire life cycle within the skin of a mammalian host, invisible without a microscope.
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Chicken Mite
A tiny, blood-feeding mite that hides in cracks and crevices of poultry housing by day and emerges at night to feed on roosting birds, turning a dull gray to deep red after a blood meal.
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Soil Mite
A microscopic, heavily armored mite found by the millions in a single handful of soil, quietly breaking down leaf litter and helping build the fertile ground beneath forests and fields.
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Scabies Mite
A microscopic, eyeless mite that spends its entire life cycle burrowed within the outer layer of a mammal's skin, among the smallest arachnids known to science. Unlike free-living mites, it has no independent existence away from a host and is studied primarily through microscopic examination rather than direct observation.
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Spider Mite
A speck-sized arachnid that spins fine silk webbing across infested leaves as it pierces plant cells for their contents, leaving behind a telltale stippled, bronzed appearance. Populations can explode rapidly in hot, dry weather, making it a familiar garden and greenhouse pest.
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Clover Mite
A speck-sized reddish mite that streaks a rust-colored stain if crushed and invades homes by the hundreds when lawns dry out or turn cold.
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Dust Mite
A microscopic, translucent arachnid that lives unseen in household dust, feeding quietly on shed skin flakes within mattresses, carpets, and furniture.
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Gall Mite
An almost worm-shaped, microscopic mite that induces plants to grow strange pouches, pockets, and felt-like patches around its feeding sites.
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Ear Mite
A microscopic, pale mite that lives out its entire life cycle within the ear canal of its host, completing egg to adult development in a warm, sheltered environment without ever leaving.
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Bird Mite
A minute, pale to reddish mite that lives among feathers and nesting material of wild and domestic birds, sometimes dispersing into nearby buildings when nests are abandoned.
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Follicle Mite
An elongated, microscopic mite shaped almost like a tiny worm, living deep within hair follicles and oil glands of mammal skin where it spends its entire life largely unnoticed.
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Caddisfly Larva
A soft-bodied aquatic larva famous for building a portable protective case from sand, gravel, or plant debris bound together with silk.
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Fishfly Larva
A flattened, armor-plated predator of stream bottoms, the fishfly larva spends one to three years underwater seizing prey with sickle-shaped jaws before briefly taking wing as a short-lived winged adult.
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Red Velvet Mite
A plump, brilliant red mite covered in a dense coat of short velvety hairs, often seen emerging onto the soil surface in numbers right after a heavy rain. Its vivid color and unusual size for a mite make it one of the more eye-catching arachnids most people will ever encounter.
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House Dust Mite
A microscopic, translucent mite that lives unseen in household dust, feeding on shed skin flakes accumulated in bedding and furniture.
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Codling Moth Larva
The classic 'worm in the apple,' this pinkish-white caterpillar tunnels straight to the core of apples and pears, leaving a telltale frass-plugged entry hole behind.
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Alderfly Larva
Fringed with feathery gill filaments along its sides, the alderfly larva crawls through soft pond and stream sediments hunting smaller invertebrates before eventually leaving the water entirely to pupate on land.
aquatic-insect
Mosquito Larva
A wriggling, comma-shaped aquatic larva that hangs from the water's surface to breathe before transforming into a flying adult mosquito.
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Two-Spotted Spider Mite
A near-microscopic mite that spins fine silk webbing over leaves as it feeds, leaving foliage stippled and pale.
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Soldier Fly Larva
Flattened, leathery, and tapered at both ends, the soldier fly larva drifts just beneath the surface film of ponds and marshes, filtering algae and organic debris while breathing through a fringe of water-repellent hairs at its tail.
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Horse Fly Larva
Hidden in the wet mud along pond and stream margins, the horse fly larva is a tapered, tough-skinned predator that hunts other small soil and mud-dwelling invertebrates before eventually transforming into the familiar biting fly.
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Black Fly Larva
Anchored to submerged rocks in fast-flowing streams by a silken thread, the black fly larva bends into the current and combs the water for drifting particles with a pair of delicate, fan-shaped feeding brushes.
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