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.
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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Meadow Katydid
Small, slender, and beautifully camouflaged among grass blades, meadow katydids fill open fields and marsh edges with a soft, buzzy, insect-like ticking that blends into the summer evening background.
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Ant-mimic Spider
A slender jumping spider that walks on six legs while waving the front pair like antennae, convincingly passing itself off as an ant to fool predators and prey alike.
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Common True Katydid
A living leaf that spends its life high in the treetops, the common true katydid is far more often heard than seen, producing the loud, rasping "katy-did, katy-didn't" chorus that fills eastern summer nights.
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Angular-winged Katydid
A leaf-green katydid whose broad, leaf-shaped wings make it nearly invisible among tree foliage until its soft nighttime calls give it away.
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Cone-headed Katydid
A large, grass-colored katydid named for its sharply pointed, cone-shaped head, best known for producing some of the loudest, most sustained buzzing calls of any North American insect.
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Leaf Miner
Rather than chewing from the outside, a leaf miner larva tunnels between the upper and lower surfaces of a leaf, leaving behind pale, winding trails or blotches that trace its path as it feeds.
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Leaf 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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Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
Slimmer and greener than its treetop relatives, the fork-tailed bush katydid lives among shrubs and garden plants, with males identified by the distinctive forked appendages at the tip of the abdomen that give the species its name.
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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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Leaf-Footed Bug
A large, elongated brown true bug named for the flattened, leaf-shaped expansions on its hind legs, often found feeding on fruits, seeds, and vegetables in gardens and orchards.
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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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Dead Leaf Mantis
A master of disguise whose broad, curled, vein-textured body is nearly indistinguishable from a curled, decaying leaf lying on the forest floor.
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Elm Leaf Beetle
A yellow-green leaf beetle with dark side stripes that skeletonizes elm foliage and gathers in large numbers to overwinter in buildings.
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Milkweed Leaf Beetle
A large, boldly colored leaf beetle in glossy orange-red with irregular black patches, found feeding exclusively on milkweed plants alongside monarch caterpillars.
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Ant-mimicking Mantis
As a tiny nymph, this mantis moves in quick, jerky bursts to imitate a scurrying ant, a clever disguise it gradually sheds as it grows into a typical-looking adult mantis.
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Bush Cricket
Known by its long, thread-like antennae and evening chorus of chirps, this leaf-colored insect spends its life hidden among grass and foliage, often heard far more often than seen.
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Roesel's Bush Cricket
Marked with a pale cream border along its thorax, this compact bush cricket produces a continuous, high-pitched, buzzing song reminiscent of an electrical hum from dense summer grass.
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Speckled Bush Cricket
A tiny, plump, green insect finely dotted with dark speckles, this bush cricket forgoes song almost entirely, communicating instead through nearly silent, ultrasonic clicks.
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Broad-Headed Bug
A slender, dark true bug with a notably wide head, whose nymphs are remarkable ant mimics that scurry among leaf litter before maturing into fliers that resemble small leaf-footed bugs.
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Mormon Cricket
A hefty, flightless katydid whose swarms can stretch for miles across western rangelands, marching en masse in search of food and mates.
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Great Green Bush Cricket
Europe's largest bush cricket, this brilliant grass-green insect fills warm summer evenings with a loud, sustained buzzing call audible from a considerable distance.
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Carpenter Bee
A large, robust bee closely resembling a bumblebee but with a shiny, mostly bald black abdomen, known for excavating tunnel nests into bare, untreated wood.
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Hoverfly
A slender, bee- or wasp-patterned fly known for its remarkable ability to hover motionless in midair before darting suddenly to a new flower.
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