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.
Water Mite
A brilliantly colored, ball-shaped mite that swims through freshwater ponds and streams using fringed, oar-like legs.
arachnid
Itch Mite
A microscopic, rounded mite that spends its entire life cycle within the skin of a mammalian host, invisible without a microscope.
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Chicken Mite
A tiny, blood-feeding mite that hides in cracks and crevices of poultry housing by day and emerges at night to feed on roosting birds, turning a dull gray to deep red after a blood meal.
arachnid
Soil Mite
A microscopic, heavily armored mite found by the millions in a single handful of soil, quietly breaking down leaf litter and helping build the fertile ground beneath forests and fields.
arachnid
Scabies Mite
A microscopic, eyeless mite that spends its entire life cycle burrowed within the outer layer of a mammal's skin, among the smallest arachnids known to science. Unlike free-living mites, it has no independent existence away from a host and is studied primarily through microscopic examination rather than direct observation.
arachnid
Spider Mite
A speck-sized arachnid that spins fine silk webbing across infested leaves as it pierces plant cells for their contents, leaving behind a telltale stippled, bronzed appearance. Populations can explode rapidly in hot, dry weather, making it a familiar garden and greenhouse pest.
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Clover Mite
A speck-sized reddish mite that streaks a rust-colored stain if crushed and invades homes by the hundreds when lawns dry out or turn cold.
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Dust Mite
A microscopic, translucent arachnid that lives unseen in household dust, feeding quietly on shed skin flakes within mattresses, carpets, and furniture.
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Gall Mite
An almost worm-shaped, microscopic mite that induces plants to grow strange pouches, pockets, and felt-like patches around its feeding sites.
arachnid
Ear Mite
A microscopic, pale mite that lives out its entire life cycle within the ear canal of its host, completing egg to adult development in a warm, sheltered environment without ever leaving.
arachnid
Bird Mite
A minute, pale to reddish mite that lives among feathers and nesting material of wild and domestic birds, sometimes dispersing into nearby buildings when nests are abandoned.
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Follicle Mite
An elongated, microscopic mite shaped almost like a tiny worm, living deep within hair follicles and oil glands of mammal skin where it spends its entire life largely unnoticed.
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Red Velvet Mite
A plump, brilliant red mite covered in a dense coat of short velvety hairs, often seen emerging onto the soil surface in numbers right after a heavy rain. Its vivid color and unusual size for a mite make it one of the more eye-catching arachnids most people will ever encounter.
arachnid
House Dust Mite
A microscopic, translucent mite that lives unseen in household dust, feeding on shed skin flakes accumulated in bedding and furniture.
arachnid
Two-Spotted Spider Mite
A near-microscopic mite that spins fine silk webbing over leaves as it feeds, leaving foliage stippled and pale.
arachnid
Chigger
A nearly microscopic mite larva that waits in clusters on grass tips for a passing host, taking a single brief meal before dropping away unseen. Only this larval stage is parasitic; the free-living adult spends its life hunting tiny prey in the soil.
arachnid
Minute Pirate Bug
A tiny, black-and-white patterned true bug barely visible without close inspection, the minute pirate bug is a voracious predator of thrips, mites, and insect eggs on flowers and foliage.
true-bug
Pavement Ant
A stocky brown to black ant famous for the dramatic "ant wars" its colonies wage along sidewalk cracks each spring.
ant
Buck Moth Caterpillar
A dark, spiny caterpillar covered in branched spines that marches across oak-lined sidewalks in dense groups each spring.
caterpillar-larva
Mormon Cricket
A hefty, flightless katydid whose swarms can stretch for miles across western rangelands, marching en masse in search of food and mates.
grasshopper-cricket
Leafhopper
A small, wedge-shaped insect that darts sideways and springs away in quick hops when disturbed, often brightly striped or patterned and found clinging to the underside of leaves.
true-bug
Huntsman Spider
With legs splayed crab-like to either side of a flattened body, the huntsman spider is built for speed, capable of scuttling sideways across walls and tree trunks in pursuit of prey.
spider
Wall Spider
A tiny, flattened spider that spins a small disc-shaped web hugging the surface of a wall and darts sideways in a quick, erratic dash when disturbed.
spider
Planthopper
A varied group of sap-feeding true bugs known for their sideways-held wings, jumping ability, and, in some tropical species, exaggerated head projections used for display.
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