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.
Springtail
A minuscule, wingless hexapod best known for its spring-loaded tail-like structure that flicks it into sudden, erratic hops when disturbed, often found in huge numbers in damp soil and leaf litter.
otherSoil 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.
arachnidFungus Gnat
A small, dark, mosquito-like fly with long legs and delicate smoky wings, often seen weakly fluttering around houseplants or crawling across damp potting soil.
flyGnat
A catch-all common name for a wide range of tiny, delicate flies, some no bigger than a grain of pepper, often seen hovering in small clouds near water, moist soil, or overripe produce.
flySmall Tortoiseshell
A vivid orange-red European garden butterfly patterned with black and yellow blocks and a border of blue crescents, one of the most familiar and widely recognized butterflies across its range.
butterfly
Spiny Orb Weaver
A small, hard-shelled orb weaver shaped like a tiny crab, with six sharp spines projecting from a brightly colored abdomen suspended in a neat wheel-shaped web.
spider
Blue Orchard Bee
A small, metallic blue-black solitary bee widely valued as an efficient early-spring pollinator of fruit trees, nesting in narrow tunnels and hollow stems rather than building hives.
bee
Pseudoscorpion
A tiny, tail-less relative of true scorpions, complete with a pair of oversized pincers on a body barely bigger than a grain of rice. Often overlooked entirely, it spends its life hunting even smaller arthropods in leaf litter, bark, and sometimes old books.
arachnid
Sleepy Orange
A small, deep orange sulphur butterfly with dark wing borders and a low, wandering flight, named for a faint dark mark that suggests a half-closed, sleepy eye.
butterflyRoot Maggot
A small, legless white grub that lives hidden in the soil, tunneling into the roots of cabbage-family vegetables where it feeds unseen.
fly
Mining Bee
A furry, solitary ground-nesting bee that emerges in early spring in loose aggregations, often mistaken for a small bumble bee, digging individual burrows marked by small volcano-shaped mounds of soil.
beeBig-Eyed Bug
A small, broad-headed true bug named for its noticeably large, bulging compound eyes, the big-eyed bug is a beneficial predator that patrols low vegetation and soil surfaces for small pest insects.
true-bug
Karner Blue
A tiny, silvery-blue butterfly dependent entirely on wild lupine and now known chiefly from a small number of protected sandy-soil habitats in the Great Lakes and Northeast.
butterflyDrywood 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.
otherHorse Fly Larva
Hidden in the wet mud along pond and stream margins, the horse fly larva is a tapered, tough-skinned predator that hunts other small soil and mud-dwelling invertebrates before eventually transforming into the familiar biting fly.
aquatic-insect
Earthworm
A long, smooth, segmented soil-dweller with no legs, eyes, or shell, best recognized by its ringed body and the pale saddle-like band (clitellum) found on mature individuals.
other
Cabbage White Butterfly
A small, plain white butterfly with one or two black spots on each forewing and dark wingtips, one of the most common and widespread garden butterflies in the world.
butterfly
Emperor Moth
A striking silk moth with a large eyespot on each of its four wings, showing pronounced differences between the smaller, orange-brown, day-flying males and the larger, greyer, night-flying females.
moth
House Centipede
A fast, wiry arthropod with 15 pairs of extremely long, banded legs that make it look far bigger than its actual body size, often seen darting across bathroom or basement floors at night.
myriapod
Vapourer Moth
A small tussock moth with striking sexual dimorphism: rusty-orange, day-flying males with feathery antennae contrast with flightless, grub-like grey females that never leave their cocoon to lay eggs.
moth
Vaporer Moth
A tussock moth with dramatic sexual differences: the male is a small rusty-brown day-flying moth with a white wing spot, while the female is a flightless, wingless gray sac-like insect that never leaves her cocoon.
moth
American Copper
A small, bright orange-and-black butterfly with fiery copper-colored forewings and dusky gray hindwings edged in orange, commonly seen darting low over weedy fields and vacant lots.
butterfly
Cabbage White
A common, small white butterfly with one or two black wing spots, whose green caterpillars are a familiar sight feeding on cabbage-family garden plants.
butterflyAcrobat Ant
A small ant named for its habit of raising its distinctive heart-shaped abdomen up over its body like an acrobat when disturbed or alarmed.
ant