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.
Rove Beetle
A slender, fast-running beetle with unusually short wing covers that leave much of its flexible abdomen exposed, often curling its tail upward like a scorpion when alarmed.
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Soldier Beetle
A slender, soft-bodied beetle in orange and black or yellow and brown, often seen clustered on late-summer flowers where it feeds on pollen, nectar, and small insects.
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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.
beetleLily Leaf Beetle
A brilliant scarlet-red beetle with a jet-black head, legs, and underside that feeds almost exclusively on true lilies and fritillaries, often stripping leaves down to bare stems.
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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.
beetleJune Beetle
A stout, reddish-brown scarab beetle that emerges in late spring and early summer, famous for clumsily bumping into porch lights and window screens at night.
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Flour Beetle
A tiny, shiny reddish-brown beetle that infests flour, cereal, and other dry stored foods, often found in dense clustered populations.
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Titan Beetle
One of the largest insects on Earth, the titan beetle is a colossal longhorn from the Amazon whose body can exceed 16 cm. Its powerful jaws and loud hiss make it an imposing rainforest giant.
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Jewel Bug
A living gemstone of the insect world, the jewel bug shimmers in dazzling metallic greens, blues, reds, and golds. Its enlarged shield-like back covers the entire body, making it look like a polished piece of enamelware.
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Mealworm Beetle
A shiny, oval, dark reddish-brown to nearly black beetle whose larva, the familiar 'mealworm,' is a common sight in stored grain products.
beetleIronclad Beetle
A slow-moving, mottled gray beetle famed for having one of the hardest, most crush-resistant exoskeletons of any insect, often found clinging motionless to dead wood or tree bark.
beetleBurying Beetle
A black beetle marked with bold orange-red bands, notable for locating small dead animals, burying them underground, and cooperatively raising larvae with a partner over the buried carcass.
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Palo Verde Beetle
One of the largest beetles in North America, a heavy, dark reddish-brown longhorn beetle with long spiny antennae and a loud, buzzing flight that emerges from the desert soil around palo verde and mesquite trees in summer.
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Milkweed Leaf Beetle
A large, boldly colored leaf beetle in glossy orange-red with irregular black patches, found feeding exclusively on milkweed plants alongside monarch caterpillars.
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European Stag Beetle
Europe's largest beetle, a glossy dark brown insect in which males carry oversized antler-like mandibles used to wrestle rivals, resembling the antlers of a stag.
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Powderpost Beetle
A small, slender reddish-brown to dark brown beetle whose larvae tunnel through seasoned hardwood, reducing it internally to a fine, powdery frass.
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Cigarette Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown, humpbacked beetle that rides along in stored dried herbs, spices, and tobacco wherever it hitches a ride.
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Asparagus Beetle
A small, boldly patterned blue-black beetle with cream and orange-red markings that clusters on emerging asparagus spears in spring.
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Asian Lady Beetle
A highly variable orange-to-red ladybird beetle, often bearing many black spots or none at all, famous for swarming into homes in large numbers during autumn.
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Furniture Beetle
A tiny, reddish-brown to dark brown cylindrical beetle whose larvae, commonly called 'woodworm,' bore small round tunnels through seasoned furniture and timber.
beetleNet-winged Beetle
A soft-bodied beetle with broad, ridged wing covers patterned in bold orange or red and black bands, whose netlike wing venation and vivid coloring warn potential predators of its unpalatability.
beetleBombardier Beetle
A dark, quick-moving ground beetle famous for firing a hot, audible chemical spray from its abdomen when disturbed, using two-tone coloring of a reddish head and thorax against blue-black wing covers as a warning signal.
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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.
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Devil's Coach Horse Beetle
A large, matte-black rove beetle that raises its flexible abdomen up and over its back like a scorpion's tail and gapes its jaws when threatened, one of the biggest and most dramatic rove beetles in Europe.
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