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.
Locust Borer
A slender black longhorn beetle boldly striped with yellow, closely resembling a wasp, commonly seen visiting goldenrod flowers in autumn near black locust trees.
beetle
Metallic Wood-boring Beetle
The North American common name for jewel beetles, emphasizing the wood-tunneling habits of their larvae, which leave telltale flattened, D-shaped exit holes in bark of stressed or dying trees.
beetle
Cottonwood Borer
A large, boldly patterned longhorn beetle in black and chalky white checkerboard markings, often found clinging to the trunks of cottonwood and poplar trees near its larvae's root tunnels.
beetle
Old House Borer
A grayish-brown to nearly black longhorn beetle whose larvae bore extensively through structural softwood, capable of causing large galleries hidden beneath the wood surface.
beetle
Deathwatch Beetle
A small, mottled brown wood-boring beetle famous for the faint ticking sound it makes by tapping its head against wood, historically associated with old timber-framed buildings.
beetle
Longhorn Beetle
A beetle instantly recognizable by antennae often longer than its own body, ranging from small woodland species to large, dramatically patterned tropical and temperate forms.
beetle
Palo Verde Beetle
One of the largest beetles in North America, a heavy, dark reddish-brown longhorn beetle with long spiny antennae and a loud, buzzing flight that emerges from the desert soil around palo verde and mesquite trees in summer.
beetleAsian Longhorned Beetle
A large, glossy black longhorn beetle patterned with irregular white spots and boldly banded blue-white antennae, notable as one of the largest and most eye-catching wood-boring beetles seen in temperate hardwood trees.
beetlePine Sawyer Beetle
A large, long-antennaed longhorn beetle of pine and spruce forests, mottled gray-brown to black, that produces a rasping sound when handled and whose larvae tunnel deep into dead or dying conifer wood.
beetle
Titan Beetle
One of the largest insects on Earth, the titan beetle is a colossal longhorn from the Amazon whose body can exceed 16 cm. Its powerful jaws and loud hiss make it an imposing rainforest giant.
beetleIronclad Beetle
A slow-moving, mottled gray beetle famed for having one of the hardest, most crush-resistant exoskeletons of any insect, often found clinging motionless to dead wood or tree bark.
beetle
Powderpost Beetle
A small, slender reddish-brown to dark brown beetle whose larvae tunnel through seasoned hardwood, reducing it internally to a fine, powdery frass.
beetle
Death Watch Beetle
A mottled brown wood-boring beetle famous for the faint ticking sound it taps out inside old timbers, once thought by superstitious listeners to be an omen of death.
beetle