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.
Mason Bee
A compact, metallic blue-black bee that nests in existing narrow cavities and seals its brood cells with mud, prized as one of the most efficient early-spring pollinators of fruit trees.
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Blue Orchard Bee
A small, metallic blue-black solitary bee widely valued as an efficient early-spring pollinator of fruit trees, nesting in narrow tunnels and hollow stems rather than building hives.
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Jewel Beetle
A sleek, bullet-shaped beetle wrapped in brilliant iridescent metallic colors — green, copper, blue, or gold — that seem to shift with the angle of light.
beetle
Dogbane Beetle
A small, brilliantly iridescent leaf beetle that shifts between shades of green, gold, blue, and copper depending on the viewing angle, always found on dogbane plants.
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Asparagus Beetle
A small, boldly patterned blue-black beetle with cream and orange-red markings that clusters on emerging asparagus spears in spring.
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Bombardier Beetle
A dark, quick-moving ground beetle famous for firing a hot, audible chemical spray from its abdomen when disturbed, using two-tone coloring of a reddish head and thorax against blue-black wing covers as a warning signal.
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Asian 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.
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Jewel Bug
A living gemstone of the insect world, the jewel bug shimmers in dazzling metallic greens, blues, reds, and golds. Its enlarged shield-like back covers the entire body, making it look like a polished piece of enamelware.
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Screwworm Fly
A metallic blue-green blowfly whose larvae are unusual among maggots for feeding on living tissue rather than carrion, drawn to even small open wounds on warm-blooded animals. The species has been the target of one of the most successful large-scale insect eradication campaigns in history across much of North America.
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Cuckoo Bee
A slender, wasp-like bee that lacks pollen-carrying hairs because it never gathers its own pollen, instead sneaking into the nests of other solitary bees to lay eggs that hatch and consume the host's food stores.
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Bumblebee Moth
A fuzzy, day-flying sphinx moth that hovers at flowers like a bee, with mostly clear wings and a black-and-yellow banded body that mimics a bumblebee.
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Bed Bug
A small, flat, reddish-brown, wingless insect shaped like an apple seed that hides in mattress seams and bed frames by day and emerges at night to feed.
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