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.
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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Cigarette Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown, humpbacked beetle that rides along in stored dried herbs, spices, and tobacco wherever it hitches a ride.
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Confused Flour Beetle
A tiny, flattened, reddish-brown beetle commonly found in stored flour and grain products, distinguished from its near-identical relative the red flour beetle mainly by its antennae shape.
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Flour Beetle
A tiny, shiny reddish-brown beetle that infests flour, cereal, and other dry stored foods, often found in dense clustered populations.
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Soldier Beetle
A slender, soft-bodied beetle in orange and black or yellow and brown, often seen clustered on late-summer flowers where it feeds on pollen, nectar, and small insects.
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Rove Beetle
A slender, fast-running beetle with unusually short wing covers that leave much of its flexible abdomen exposed, often curling its tail upward like a scorpion when alarmed.
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Blister Beetle
An elongated, soft-bodied beetle with a distinctly narrow neck, often seen feeding in small groups on flowers, and known for releasing a defensive chemical from its leg joints when disturbed.
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Ironclad Beetle
A slow-moving, mottled gray beetle famed for having one of the hardest, most crush-resistant exoskeletons of any insect, often found clinging motionless to dead wood or tree bark.
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Whirligig Beetle
A small, glossy black beetle that spins and darts in rapid circles across the surface film of ponds, often gathered in loose groups, using divided eyes to see both above and below the water at once.
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Dung Beetle
A stout, often glossy black or metallic beetle famous for rolling, burying, or tunneling into animal dung, an unglamorous but ecologically vital habit that recycles nutrients back into the soil.
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Longhorn Beetle
A beetle instantly recognizable by antennae often longer than its own body, ranging from small woodland species to large, dramatically patterned tropical and temperate forms.
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Fig Beetle
A large, dull metallic-green scarab beetle with a loud, buzzing flight, often seen crash-landing near ripe or overripe fruit and compost piles on warm summer days.
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Darkling Beetle
A uniformly dark, matte-black ground beetle often seen walking deliberately across open soil, known for tilting its rear end skyward in a distinctive defensive posture when disturbed.
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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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Red Flour Beetle
A tiny, flattened, rust-red beetle found in stored flour and grain worldwide, capable of flight and closely resembling the confused flour beetle apart from the shape of its antennal club.
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Green June Beetle
A large, velvety green scarab beetle with bronze edges that flies with a loud buzzing drone on warm summer days, often seen around ripening fruit.
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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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Lily 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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Flower Chafer Beetle
Often clad in brilliant metallic greens, golds, and bronzes, flower chafers are day-flying scarab beetles that feed on flowers. Many buzz loudly in flight and keep their wing covers closed as they take off.
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Jewel Beetle
A sleek, bullet-shaped beetle wrapped in brilliant iridescent metallic colors — green, copper, blue, or gold — that seem to shift with the angle of light.
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Goliath Beetle
One of the largest and heaviest beetles on Earth, a massive scarab with a bold pattern of black, white, and brown stripes across its shield-like body.
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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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Cucumber Beetle
A small, brightly colored beetle patterned with black spots or stripes on a yellow-green background, commonly seen crawling on the flowers and leaves of cucumber and squash plants.
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Eyed Click Beetle
A large, mottled black-and-white beetle marked with two prominent false eyespots on its thorax, well known for its ability to snap its body into the air with an audible click when flipped onto its back.
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