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.
Non-Biting Midge
A mosquito look-alike that gathers by the thousands in swirling mating swarms near lakes and ponds, despite lacking any ability to bite.
flyNon-Biting Midge Larva (Bloodworm)
Wriggling through soft bottom mud in dense colonies, the bloodworm gets its striking red color from a specialized blood pigment that lets it survive in oxygen-poor water where few other insects can.
aquatic-insectScale Insect
A small, immobile insect that appears as a flat or domed, waxy bump firmly attached to a stem or leaf, easily mistaken for a plant blemish rather than a living creature.
true-bugLeaf Insect
A living illusion, this flattened green insect reproduces the veins, edges, and even blemishes of a real leaf so precisely that it can vanish while resting in plain sight.
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Walking Stick Insect
A master of disguise that has evolved to look almost exactly like a twig, bark or leaf, remaining motionless for hours to avoid the notice of hungry birds and lizards.
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Water Stick Insect
An extraordinarily twig-like aquatic predator that lies motionless among pond weed, grasping passing prey with spiny raptorial forelegs while breathing through a long tail-like snorkel.
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Goliath Stick Insect
One of the largest stick insects in the world, this vivid green giant unfurls startling crimson underwings when startled, briefly abandoning its disguise as foliage.
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Javanese Leaf Insect
A broad, veined, leaf-green body makes this insect nearly indistinguishable from the foliage it feeds on, a masterclass in disguise native to the forests of Southeast Asia.
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Indian Stick Insect
A slender, twig-mimicking insect so unremarkable in stillness that it disappears among the stems it feeds on, one of the most widely raised stick insects in the world.
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Giant Prickly Stick Insect
A hefty, spine-covered phasmid that mimics dead leaves and curled bark, and when threatened, arches its abdomen like a scorpion's tail in a dramatic bluff display.
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Midge
A slender, mosquito-like fly that forms dense swarms near water at dusk, easily mistaken for a mosquito but lacking any biting mouthparts.
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Vietnamese Walking Stick
A slender tropical stick insect popular in classrooms and terrariums, notable for females that can produce healthy offspring entirely on their own, without ever mating.
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Cochineal
A tiny, sedentary scale insect that lives clustered on prickly pear cacti beneath a protective coat of white, waxy fluff, historically prized for the deep red pigment it produces.
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Walking Stick
A remarkably twig-like insect with a long, slender, brown to green body and thin legs, so effective at mimicking a plant stem that it can be nearly invisible while motionless on vegetation.
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Giant Walking Stick
The longest insect in the United States, this brown, thread-thin giant sways gently on its perch to complete the illusion of a wind-stirred twig.
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Spittlebug
A small hopping true bug best known in its nymph stage, which surrounds itself in a frothy mass of white foam on plant stems, commonly called cuckoo spit.
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Mealybug
A soft, oval insect coated in a powdery white waxy secretion that gives it a fuzzy, cotton-like appearance, typically found clustered in leaf joints and along stems of houseplants.
true-bugSoldier 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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Mud Dauber
A slender, non-aggressive solitary wasp with a distinctively long, thread-like waist, known for constructing tube- or pot-shaped nests out of mud pellets on walls and eaves.
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Crazy Ant
A fast-moving, long-legged ant instantly recognizable by its erratic, non-stop scurrying in every direction rather than the orderly trails followed by most other ants.
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Hobo Spider
A fast-running, brown funnel-web spider with a chevron pattern down its abdomen, the hobo spider builds a flat, non-sticky sheet web that narrows into a tunnel retreat where it waits for prey.
spiderWater 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.
beetleRocky 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.
grasshopper-cricketAlderfly
A small, dusky-winged insect that flutters weakly among streamside alders and shrubs, the diminutive relative of the mighty dobsonfly.
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