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.
Blue Morpho Butterfly
A dazzling, hand-sized rainforest butterfly whose wings flash brilliant metallic blue in flight, an effect created not by pigment but by microscopic light-bending scales.
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Common Blue
A small, sun-loving butterfly whose males flash brilliant violet-blue wings while females wear warm brown with a scattering of orange spots.
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Brimstone Butterfly
A sulphur-yellow, leaf-shaped butterfly whose folded wings mimic a fresh green leaf so convincingly it is often credited as the origin of the word 'butterfly'.
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Karner Blue
A tiny, silvery-blue butterfly dependent entirely on wild lupine and now known chiefly from a small number of protected sandy-soil habitats in the Great Lakes and Northeast.
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Blue Morpho
A large Neotropical butterfly famed for the brilliant, shimmering iridescent blue of its wing uppersides, which flashes vividly in flight and disappears instantly when the cryptic brown underside is exposed at rest.
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Birdwing Butterfly
Among the largest butterflies on Earth, birdwings soar through rainforest canopies on angular, bird-like wings. Males dazzle with iridescent greens, golds, and blues, while the larger females wear more subdued browns.
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Dogface Butterfly
A striking yellow sulphur butterfly whose forewing pattern forms the silhouette of a dog's or poodle's head complete with a dark 'eye' spot, visible in good light.
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Malachite Butterfly
A large tropical butterfly named for the vivid green, mineral-like patches that break up its otherwise dark brown wings, giving it a translucent, stained-glass appearance in flight.
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Skipper Butterfly
A stocky, fast-darting butterfly with a large head, hooked antennae tips, and thick furry body, intermediate in appearance between butterflies and moths, named for its quick, skipping flight.
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Swallowtail Butterfly
A large, showy butterfly named for the elongated, tail-like extensions on its hindwings, often seen gliding gracefully around gardens and flowering meadows.
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Comma Butterfly
An orange-brown butterfly with distinctively ragged, scalloped wing edges and a small white comma-shaped mark on the underside of the hindwing, resembling a dead leaf when at rest.
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Peacock Butterfly
A richly colored reddish-brown European butterfly named for the four large blue-black eyespots on its wings, which resemble the eye-like markings on a peacock's tail feathers.
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Julia Butterfly
A brilliant, elongated-winged orange butterfly of tropical and subtropical habitats, with males glowing an intense unmarked orange and females showing subtler markings and a hint of black striping.
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Viceroy Butterfly
An orange-and-black butterfly closely resembling the monarch, distinguished by a smaller size and a distinctive black line crossing the veins of the hindwing, and long cited as a classic example of mimicry between two unrelated species.
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Monarch Butterfly
A large butterfly with bold orange wings crossed by black veins and a black, white-spotted border, famous for its multi-generational migration between North America and central Mexico.
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Blue Orchard Bee
A small, metallic blue-black solitary bee widely valued as an efficient early-spring pollinator of fruit trees, nesting in narrow tunnels and hollow stems rather than building hives.
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Blue Bottle Fly
A robust fly with a glossy, metallic blue-black body and a loud buzzing flight, commonly seen around outdoor waste and occasionally indoors, easily recognized by its shiny coloring and bristly frame.
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Eastern Tailed-Blue
A tiny gossamer-wing butterfly with a delicate thread-like tail on each hindwing and a small orange spot near the tail base, common in open weedy habitats throughout the eastern half of North America.
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Mourning Cloak Butterfly
A deep maroon-brown butterfly bordered with a cream-yellow band and a row of iridescent blue spots, unusual among butterflies for overwintering as an adult and being one of the first to appear in early spring.
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Cabbage White Butterfly
A small, plain white butterfly with one or two black spots on each forewing and dark wingtips, one of the most common and widespread garden butterflies in the world.
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Question Mark Butterfly
A ragged-edged anglewing butterfly named for the tiny silver question-mark squiggle on its mottled brown underside, with tawny-orange upperwings dotted in black.
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Painted Lady Butterfly
A medium-sized orange-and-black butterfly with a mosaic of white-spotted black wingtips, famous as the most widely distributed butterfly on Earth and a long-distance migrant.
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Blue Dasher Dragonfly
A small, common dragonfly whose mature males combine a powdery blue abdomen with brilliant green eyes, often seen perched horizontally with its tail raised skyward.
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Blue-winged Grasshopper
A drab, camouflaged grasshopper that startles onlookers with a sudden flash of bright blue hindwings the instant it takes flight.
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