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.
Silverfish Firebrat
Two closely related, wingless, silvery or mottled insects with fish-like darting movements and three long tail bristles, one favoring damp basements and the other thriving near warm ovens and furnaces.
other
Firebrat
A fast, wingless, mottled gray-brown insect with long antennae and tail bristles that thrives in the warm, humid corners near ovens, boilers, and pipes.
other
Silverfish
A wingless, silvery-gray insect with a tapered, fish-like body and three long tail bristles, known for its quick, darting movements and preference for dark, humid hiding spots.
other
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.
beetle
Flour Beetle
A tiny, shiny reddish-brown beetle that infests flour, cereal, and other dry stored foods, often found in dense clustered populations.
beetleDigger 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
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.
beetleBush 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.
grasshopper-cricketMouse Spider
A stout, glossy burrowing spider named for its supposed mouse-like agility, with males often sporting a strikingly colored head and jaws.
spider
Flesh Fly
A bristly gray fly marked with three dark thoracic stripes and a checkerboard-patterned abdomen, often spotted hovering near carrion or garbage.
flyPygmy Grasshopper
A tiny, ground-hugging grasshopper with an elongated pronotum extending back over its body, often found hopping along muddy pond edges.
grasshopper-cricket
Monarch's Milkweed
A boldly orange-and-black true bug that shares milkweed plants with Monarch butterfly caterpillars, often clustering in large groups on seed pods and stems.
true-bug
Dance Fly
A slender, long-legged predatory fly named for the swarming courtship dances males perform at dusk, often while carrying a captured insect as an offering.
fly
Chinch Bug
A tiny black-and-white true bug that feeds on grasses, often overlooked individually but capable of forming dense colonies in sunny, dry patches of lawn.
true-bug
Moth
A broad group of scale-winged insects related to butterflies, typically nocturnal, with stout, often furry bodies and feathery or thread-like antennae.
mothFishfly
A smaller, more modestly built cousin of the dobsonfly, often mistaken for its larger relative but lacking the dramatic elongated mandibles of male dobsonflies.
aquatic-insect
Woodlouse Spider
A reddish-brown spider with oversized forward-pointing jaws specialized for piercing the armored shells of woodlice, often found lurking under damp stones and mulch.
spiderThrips
A minuscule, slender insect with fringed, feather-like wings, often noticed only as a fast-moving dark speck darting across a flower petal or windowsill.
otherSoldier Fly
A wasp-mimicking fly with a flattened, often metallic body that spends its larval life quietly breaking down decaying plant matter or aquatic debris.
flySpotted 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.
grasshopper-cricket
Powdered Dancer
Named for the pale, frosty bloom that coats mature males, the Powdered Dancer is a robust river damselfly often seen basking on sunlit rocks and gravel bars.
dragonfly
Millipede
A slow-moving, cylindrical, many-legged detritivore with two pairs of legs per body segment, often seen curling into a tight spiral when disturbed.
myriapod
Money Spider
A tiny sheet-weaving spider, often seen drifting through the air on silk threads, traditionally said to bring good luck when it lands on you.
spiderSun Spider
A fast-running, fiercely built desert arachnid with oversized jaws, often mistaken for a giant spider despite belonging to an entirely different arachnid order.
arachnid