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.
Bush 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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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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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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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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Cone-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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Cricket
A dark, round-headed jumping insect best known for the rhythmic chirping song produced by males rubbing their forewings together, often heard rather than seen after dusk.
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Cave Cricket
Humpbacked and wingless with absurdly long legs and antennae, this pale, silent insect thrives in the total darkness of caves, basements, and damp crawl spaces.
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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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Jerusalem Cricket
A large, wingless, ground-dwelling insect with a shiny amber body, a strikingly human-like face, and a robust, banded abdomen, most often uncovered while digging in soil.
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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.
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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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Camel Cricket
A wingless, humpbacked cricket with unusually long legs that gives it a spider-like appearance, often startling people when it turns up in damp basements or crawl spaces.
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House Cricket
A pale tan, dark-banded cricket originally from warm regions of Asia that has spread worldwide both as an occasional indoor nuisance and as a widely farmed feeder insect.
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Field Cricket
A stout, dark cricket whose loud, rhythmic chirping is one of the most familiar summer and fall night sounds in fields and lawns across much of the world.
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Water Cricket
Despite its name, the water cricket is not a cricket at all but a compact, velvety true bug that skates over the swirling surfaces of streams and riffles in search of trapped prey.
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Mole Cricket
A stout, velvety brown cricket relative with broad, shovel-like front legs adapted for digging, spending most of its life burrowing just beneath the surface of moist soil.
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Spotted Camel Cricket
A wingless, humpbacked cricket relative with mottled markings and enormous hind legs, more often found lurking in damp basements and cellars than singing in a meadow.
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Northern Mole Cricket
A stout, velvety brown cricket with shovel-like front legs built for tunneling through damp soil, more often heard as a low buzzing trill at night than seen above ground.
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Snowy Tree Cricket
Nicknamed the thermometer cricket, this pale, delicate insect sings a steady, rhythmic chirp whose pace rises and falls so predictably with temperature that its chirp rate can be used to estimate the air temperature.
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Red Admiral
A fast-flying, strikingly patterned butterfly with velvety black wings crossed by a bold orange-red band and white-spotted tips, often seen basking on tree trunks or sipping from fallen fruit.
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Death's-head Hawkmoth
A large, thick-bodied hawkmoth instantly recognized by the pale, skull-and-crossbones marking on its furry thorax, famous for entering beehives and letting out a shrill squeak when disturbed.
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Red Paper Wasp
A large, rusty-red paper wasp that builds open, umbrella-shaped nests under eaves and in sheltered structures, often seen hovering near its comb.
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Red-spotted Purple
A large, iridescent blue-black butterfly lacking tails, notable for closely mimicking the unpalatable Pipevine Swallowtail, with rows of red-orange spots visible along the underside wing margins.
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Red Flour Beetle
A tiny, flattened, rust-red beetle found in stored flour and grain worldwide, capable of flight and closely resembling the confused flour beetle apart from the shape of its antennal club.
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