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.
Fungus Gnat
A small, dark, mosquito-like fly with long legs and delicate smoky wings, often seen weakly fluttering around houseplants or crawling across damp potting 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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Gnat
A catch-all common name for a wide range of tiny, delicate flies, some no bigger than a grain of pepper, often seen hovering in small clouds near water, moist soil, or overripe produce.
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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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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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Crane Fly Larva
Thick-skinned and worm-like, the crane fly larva, often called a leatherjacket, burrows through wet mud and decaying vegetation at the edges of ponds and streams, breaking down plant material as it grows.
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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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Black Fly
A small, humpbacked black fly with clear wings that gathers in persistent swarms near flowing streams, favoring exposed skin around the head.
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Gall Midge
A delicate, mosquito-like fly whose larvae trigger plants to grow strange, often colorful swellings called galls, each species usually tied to one particular host plant.
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No-See-Um
A speck-sized fly so tiny it seems to vanish from sight, yet capable of swarming exposed skin near beaches and marshes at dawn and dusk.
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Maggot
A pale, legless, tapering grub that wriggles through rotting food and organic waste, the larval stage of a fly.
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Rat-Tailed Maggot
Named for its long, thin, telescoping breathing tube, the rat-tailed maggot is the aquatic larva of the drone fly, thriving in stagnant, low-oxygen water where few other insects can survive.
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Pleasing Fungus Beetle
A shiny, smooth-bodied beetle marked with bold red or orange bands on a glossy black background, commonly found feeding on bracket fungi growing on dead or dying hardwood trees.
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Root Maggot
A small, legless white grub that lives hidden in the soil, tunneling into the roots of cabbage-family vegetables where it feeds unseen.
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Biting Midge
A minuscule, gray-winged fly that gathers in dense swarms near wetlands and can slip through window screens unnoticed.
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Bot Fly
A stocky, bumblebee-mimicking fly whose adults never feed and live only long enough to mate and locate a rodent or rabbit burrow for their eggs. Despite their harmless, buzzing adult stage, bot flies are best known through the larvae that develop as internal parasites of small mammals.
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Dung Fly
A hairy, often golden-hued fly commonly seen perched on fresh manure in pastures, where it hunts smaller insects as an adult while its larvae develop within the dung itself.
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Flesh Fly
A bristly gray fly marked with three dark thoracic stripes and a checkerboard-patterned abdomen, often spotted hovering near carrion or garbage.
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Marsh Fly
A slender, unassuming fly best known for larvae with a remarkable diet: nearly every species in the family feeds on aquatic or terrestrial snails and slugs, making marsh flies natural specialists in wetland food webs. Adults are often found resting quietly on sedges and other marsh vegetation near the water's edge.
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Crane Fly
A long-legged, mosquito-like fly with a slender tan or gray body and a single pair of narrow wings, often seen wobbling clumsily around outdoor lights on summer evenings.
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Louse Fly
A flattened, leathery-bodied fly that clamps onto fur or feathers with stout claws and scuttles sideways like a tiny crab rather than taking flight when disturbed. Several species shed their wings for good once they settle on a permanent host, spending the rest of their lives buried in fleece or plumage.
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Onion Fly
A slender gray fly closely related to houseflies whose white legless larvae bore into onion bulbs, feeding in clusters within a single rotting bulb.
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Soldier Fly
A wasp-mimicking fly with a flattened, often metallic body that spends its larval life quietly breaking down decaying plant matter or aquatic debris.
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