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.
Grasshopper
A robust, strong-jumping insect with short antennae and powerful hind legs, commonly seen springing away through grass and low vegetation on warm sunny days.
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American Grasshopper
A large, strong-flying grasshopper related to the locusts of the Old World, the American grasshopper can occasionally form dense, damaging aggregations across the southern United States.
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Green Grasshopper
A bright grass-green grasshopper with a rasping, sustained song, the common green grasshopper is one of the most familiar sounds of a European summer meadow.
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Differential Grasshopper
A large, robust grasshopper with a bold black herringbone pattern etched along its swollen hind legs, the differential grasshopper is one of the biggest and most recognizable pest grasshoppers in North America.
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Painted Grasshopper
A large, boldly striped grasshopper of South Asia whose vivid green, yellow, and black pattern warns predators that it has fed on toxic milkweed plants.
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Lubber Grasshopper
Heavy-bodied and slow-moving, lubber grasshoppers make up for their poor flying ability with large size, bold coloring, and a lumbering, ground-bound lifestyle.
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Carolina Grasshopper
Well camouflaged against dusty ground until it bursts into flight, the Carolina grasshopper flashes broad black hindwings edged in pale yellow before dropping back into invisibility.
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Pygmy Grasshopper
A tiny, ground-hugging grasshopper with an elongated pronotum extending back over its body, often found hopping along muddy pond edges.
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Red-legged Grasshopper
One of the most abundant and widespread grasshoppers in North America, the red-legged grasshopper is easily spotted by its reddish hind shins flashing amid a brown, mottled body.
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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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Two-striped Grasshopper
Easily spotted by the pair of pale cream stripes running the length of its body, the two-striped grasshopper is one of the largest and most economically important grasshoppers in North America.
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Band-winged Grasshopper
A camouflaged grasshopper that flashes vivid yellow, red, or blue hindwings in flight before vanishing again into the dust the instant it lands.
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Spur-throated Grasshopper
One of the most familiar grasshopper groups in North America, named for the small spine on its throat and known for including some of the continent's most abundant rangeland species.
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Eastern Lubber Grasshopper
One of the largest grasshoppers in North America, the eastern lubber is a slow, flightless giant clad in bold black, yellow, and red that announces its presence rather than hiding from it.
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Katydid
A leaf-mimicking insect with broad, veined green wings shaped remarkably like foliage, best known for the loud, rhythmic 'katy-did, katy-didn't' chorus males produce on warm summer nights.
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Locust
A large, powerful grasshopper capable of transforming from a solitary, harmless insect into a densely packed, migrating swarm when populations surge, historically famous for devastating crops across huge regions.
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Rocky Mountain Locust
Once the most destructive insect in North American history, this swarming grasshopper vanished within a few decades of forming the largest insect swarm ever recorded.
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Migratory Locust
A grasshopper with a split personality, the migratory locust can switch from a quiet, solitary green insect into a boldly marked swarming form that travels in enormous, crop-devouring bands.
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Desert Locust
A large, powerful grasshopper capable of forming some of the most extensive and historically devastating insect swarms on Earth, transforming from a solitary desert dweller into a densely packed migrating horde under the right conditions.
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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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Black Soldier Fly
A sleek, dark, wasp-like fly whose larvae are voracious decomposers of decaying organic material, while the short-lived adults do not feed at all.
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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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Water Scavenger Beetle
Rounded and glossy, water scavenger beetles paddle through weedy ponds gathering air with a short antenna rather than a snorkel-like tube, feeding mostly on decaying plant matter and algae.
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Hercules Beetle
One of the largest beetles in the world, with males bearing dramatic, forceps-like horns nearly as long as the rest of their armored, olive-green body.
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