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.
Velvet Ant
A densely fuzzy, brightly colored insect that looks like an oversized ant but is actually a wingless female wasp, instantly recognizable by its thick coat of red, orange, black, or white hair.
wasp
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
Ant
A small eusocial insect that lives in highly organized colonies, instantly recognizable by its narrow pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and single-file foraging trails.
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House Ant
A small, dark brown to black ant that forages in loose trails along countertops and baseboards and releases a distinctive rotten-coconut smell when crushed.
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Bullet Ant
A large, glossy reddish-black rainforest ant, among the biggest ants in the world, that nests at the base of trees and forages individually along trunks and branches of the tropical canopy floor.
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Sugar Ant
A common name for several large, sugar-loving ants, most famously the black-and-orange banded sugar ant of Australia, known for its persistent nighttime foraging around kitchens and picnics.
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Army Ant
A nomadic predator that never builds a permanent nest, instead forming temporary living bivouacs from its own linked bodies and sweeping through the forest floor in massive predatory raids.
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Crazy Ant
A fast-moving, long-legged ant instantly recognizable by its erratic, non-stop scurrying in every direction rather than the orderly trails followed by most other ants.
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Fire Ant
A small reddish-brown ant that builds loose, crater-less dirt mounds in sunny open turf and mobilizes large numbers of workers rapidly when the nest is disturbed.
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Argentine Ant
A small, uniformly light-brown ant that forms enormous, cooperative supercolonies stretching across entire regions rather than defending small individual nests.
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Weaver Ant
A tree-dwelling ant that builds its nest by stitching living leaves together with silk produced by its own larvae, forming elaborate arboreal colonies defended fiercely by its workers.
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Pavement Ant
A stocky brown to black ant famous for the dramatic "ant wars" its colonies wage along sidewalk cracks each spring.
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Pharaoh Ant
A tiny, pale-yellow ant that thrives almost exclusively indoors, forming vast interconnected colonies within the warm voids of heated buildings.
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Harvester Ant
A large, industrious desert ant that clears a bare, sunburned disk of ground around its nest entrance while collecting and storing seeds by the thousands.
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Acrobat 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.
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Field Ant
A large, common outdoor ant that builds conspicuous mound nests of soil and plant debris in sunny open ground and defends itself by spraying formic acid rather than stinging.
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Ghost Ant
A minuscule ant with a dark head and pale, nearly translucent legs and abdomen that seem to vanish against light-colored surfaces, giving the species its ghostly common name.
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Leafcutter Ant
A highly organized ant famous for marching in long trails while carrying disc-shaped pieces of leaf many times their own size, which they use to cultivate fungus gardens deep underground.
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Carpenter Ant
A large, often shiny black ant that excavates smooth tunnels in dead or damp wood for nesting, recognizable by its size, evenly rounded thorax, and elbowed antennae.
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Ant-mimic Spider
A slender jumping spider that walks on six legs while waving the front pair like antennae, convincingly passing itself off as an ant to fool predators and prey alike.
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Red Wood Ant
A large woodland ant with a reddish-brown thorax and dark abdomen, famous for building towering dome-shaped mounds of pine needles and twigs in forest clearings.
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Trap-Jaw Ant
A large, fast-moving ant with elongated, straight mandibles that snap shut faster than almost any other animal movement, used to strike prey or fling the ant itself out of danger.
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Ant-mimicking Mantis
As a tiny nymph, this mantis moves in quick, jerky bursts to imitate a scurrying ant, a clever disguise it gradually sheds as it grows into a typical-looking adult mantis.
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Little Black Ant
A tiny, shiny jet-black ant that forms long, wandering foraging trails across lawns, patios, and kitchen counters in search of sweets and protein.
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