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.
Scale Insect
A small, immobile insect that appears as a flat or domed, waxy bump firmly attached to a stem or leaf, easily mistaken for a plant blemish rather than a living creature.
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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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Walking Stick Insect
A master of disguise that has evolved to look almost exactly like a twig, bark or leaf, remaining motionless for hours to avoid the notice of hungry birds and lizards.
mantis-stick
Water Stick Insect
An extraordinarily twig-like aquatic predator that lies motionless among pond weed, grasping passing prey with spiny raptorial forelegs while breathing through a long tail-like snorkel.
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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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Goliath Stick Insect
One of the largest stick insects in the world, this vivid green giant unfurls startling crimson underwings when startled, briefly abandoning its disguise as foliage.
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Indian Stick Insect
A slender, twig-mimicking insect so unremarkable in stillness that it disappears among the stems it feeds on, one of the most widely raised stick insects in the world.
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Giant Prickly Stick Insect
A hefty, spine-covered phasmid that mimics dead leaves and curled bark, and when threatened, arches its abdomen like a scorpion's tail in a dramatic bluff display.
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Soil Centipede
An extremely long, thin, worm-like centipede with dozens of leg pairs that burrows through soil using its elongated body rather than speed to get around.
myriapod
Spur-throated Grasshopper
One of the most familiar grasshopper groups in North America, named for the small spine on its throat and known for including some of the continent's most abundant rangeland species.
grasshopper-cricket
Ten-lined June Beetle
A large, brown scarab beetle marked with bold white racing stripes down its wing covers, known for its loud buzzing flight and hissing defensive squeak.
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White-lined Sphinx Moth
A fast, hovering moth often mistaken for a hummingbird as it darts between flowers at dusk, identifiable by the bold cream-colored stripe running across each streamlined brown forewing.
moth
Giant Walking Stick
The longest insect in the United States, this brown, thread-thin giant sways gently on its perch to complete the illusion of a wind-stirred twig.
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Cochineal
A tiny, sedentary scale insect that lives clustered on prickly pear cacti beneath a protective coat of white, waxy fluff, historically prized for the deep red pigment it produces.
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Vietnamese Walking Stick
A slender tropical stick insect popular in classrooms and terrariums, notable for females that can produce healthy offspring entirely on their own, without ever mating.
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Walking Stick
A remarkably twig-like insect with a long, slender, brown to green body and thin legs, so effective at mimicking a plant stem that it can be nearly invisible while motionless on vegetation.
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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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Mealybug
A soft, oval insect coated in a powdery white waxy secretion that gives it a fuzzy, cotton-like appearance, typically found clustered in leaf joints and along stems of houseplants.
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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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Orchid Mantis
A dazzling pink-and-white mantis whose petal-shaped leg lobes let it pass as a flower, luring pollinating insects close enough to ambush.
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Digger Bee
A robust, fast-flying, densely furry solitary bee that excavates tunnels in bare or sloped soil, often confused with bumble bees due to its bulky, hairy build and loud buzzing flight.
bee
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.
aquatic-insect
Moth
A broad group of scale-winged insects related to butterflies, typically nocturnal, with stout, often furry bodies and feathery or thread-like antennae.
moth
Bess Beetle
A large, glossy jet-black beetle that lives in family groups inside rotting logs, communicating with fellow beetles through squeaks and cooperating to raise larvae, an unusually social lifestyle for an insect of its kind.
beetle