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.
Mayfly 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.
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Mayfly
A delicate insect with upright, sail-like wings and long, thread-thin tail filaments, famous for emerging by the millions in brief, synchronized swarms before dying within a day or two.
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Stonefly 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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Damselfly Nymph
A slender aquatic predator with three feathery tail gills, patiently stalking small prey among pond plants before emerging as a delicate flying damselfly.
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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.
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March Brown Mayfly
A speckled, mottled-winged mayfly whose springtime hatch is prized by anglers, the March Brown emerges from clean, rocky streams and is one of the earlier large mayflies of the season.
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Giant Mayfly
Known for emerging by the billions in summer swarms so dense they can show up on weather radar, the Giant Mayfly is one of the largest and most abundant mayflies in North America.
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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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Green Drake Mayfly
Famous among anglers for triggering explosive trout feeding frenzies, the Green Drake Mayfly is a large, striking insect whose brief springtime emergence is one of the most anticipated events on many rivers.
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Fishfly 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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Stonefly
A flattened, drab-winged insect whose nymphs are among the most reliable living indicators of pristine, well-oxygenated stream water.
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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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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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Bordered Plant Bug
A dark, oval-bodied true bug with a distinct pale margin around its wing edges, often mistaken for a large ant or beetle when its nymphs cluster together in tight groups.
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Meadow Spittlebug
A small, mottled hopping true bug whose immature nymphs are far more often noticed than the adults, hidden inside frothy blobs of white foam known as cuckoo spit on plant stems.
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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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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.
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Mourning 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.
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Confused Flour Beetle
A tiny, flattened, reddish-brown beetle commonly found in stored flour and grain products, distinguished from its near-identical relative the red flour beetle mainly by its antennae shape.
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Drywood Termite
A termite that lives entirely within the dry wood it feeds on, needing no soil contact at all, and revealing itself mainly through small piles of pellet-like frass pushed from tiny exit holes.
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