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.
grasshopper-cricketMeadow 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.
grasshopper-cricketCone-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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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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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.
grasshopper-cricketBush 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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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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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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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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Great Golden Digger Wasp
A large, strikingly two-toned solitary wasp with a golden-haired thorax, reddish-orange midsection, and black-tipped abdomen, often seen digging burrows in bare soil to stock with paralyzed katydids and crickets.
waspMayfly Nymph
A short-lived aquatic grazer with feathery gills along its abdomen, living for months underwater before a brief, spectacular mass emergence as a winged adult.
aquatic-insectStonefly Nymph
A flattened, armored aquatic nymph that clings tightly to rocks in swift, cold streams, serving as one of the most reliable signs of pristine water quality.
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Common Wood-Nymph
A large brown grassland butterfly with a bold yellow patch and one or two prominent black eyespots on the forewing, known for its bouncing, low-to-the-ground flight.
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Dragonfly Nymph
A stocky, camouflaged underwater predator that spends months or years stalking prey along the pond bottom before transforming into an aerial dragonfly.
aquatic-insectDamselfly Nymph
A slender aquatic predator with three feathery tail gills, patiently stalking small prey among pond plants before emerging as a delicate flying damselfly.
aquatic-insectFishfly Larva
A flattened, armor-plated predator of stream bottoms, the fishfly larva spends one to three years underwater seizing prey with sickle-shaped jaws before briefly taking wing as a short-lived winged adult.
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Mourning Cloak
A dark, velvety maroon-brown butterfly edged with a ragged cream-yellow border and a row of iridescent blue spots, notable for overwintering as an adult and often being one of the very first butterflies seen flying in early spring.
butterflyMourning Cloak Caterpillar
A gregarious, velvety black caterpillar speckled with white dots and a striking row of brick-red spots down its back, often seen feeding in clusters on willow branches.
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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.
butterflyStonefly
A flattened, drab-winged insect whose nymphs are among the most reliable living indicators of pristine, well-oxygenated stream water.
aquatic-insectAnt-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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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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