Identify household beetles with this database

View a breakdown of the identified species on Earth

Over 2 million species have been documented by scientists, but there may be as many as a billion distinct species. The vast majority of the species on Earth are insects, while mammals form the smallest group.

More than 2 billion people across the globe include bugs in their diets

Entomophagy is the practice of eating insects. It has been around for millennia. Bugs are nutritious and, in some places, considered a delicacy.

Visual deep dive into the collapse of insects

The most diverse group of organisms on the planet are in trouble, with recent research suggesting insect populations are declining at an unprecedented rate. Explore this visual interactive on the issue from Reuters Graphics.

Tracking butterfly migration via the pollen they collect

Trillions of insects migrate around the world each year, but many are too small to track with physical trackers, leaving their migratory routes a mystery. In recent years, scientists have utilized pollen grains collected from butterflies to analyze which plants that pollen originated from—providing substantial data to infer the insect's specific route. Research has shed light on many insects' migrations since, including the Painted Lady butterfly. Read more and see a map here.

Less than 0.1% of the approximately 20,000 known bee species make honey

The majority of honeybee species originate in South and Southeast Asia, with the largest—Apis laboriosa—found almost exclusively in the Himalayas. The smallest is the black dwarf honeybee, Apis andreniformis, which inhabits tropical and subtropical regions of the continent.

Explore a comprehensive encyclopedia of all known bird species and families

The "Birds of the World" collaborative ornithological platform combines millions of bird observation records with extensive information on more than 11,000 bird species, including their appearance, sounds, taxonomy, habitat, movements and migration, diet, breeding, behavior, and evolutionary histories.

Bug-bitten and bedeviled: a delightful dive into the bedbug

Bedbugs can live up to 6 months without food—meaning they can lurk in your bedroom while you try to eradicate them and give you a sense that you've effectively annihilated them. What else do we know about these pesky little pests? This deep, deep...

An invasive, tree-killing beetle may threaten large swaths of Australia

A Curtin University study warns that large parts of Australia, including major cities and farming regions, could be highly vulnerable to the fast-spreading polyphagous shot hole borer, which releases a fungus that can starve trees of nutrients. The tiny insect has already caused severe damage across the Perth metropolitan area.

Search plants, butterflies, and moths native to your area

This tool from the National Wildlife Federation allows you to search by zip code for native plants, ranked by the number of butterfly and moth species that use them as host plants for their caterpillars, to help identify what you can grow to support local pollinators.

A day in the life of a leafcutter ant

Among the fascinating world of insects, leafcutter ants form some of the most complex and dynamic social ecosystems. All part of an effort to keep a colony alive, worker ants toil tirelessly, dragging bits of leaves and vegetation back to their...

Iceland, the last mosquito-free country, detected them in 2025

Recently several of the mosquito species Culiseta annulata were documented in Iceland—the last country that had not yet seen them, underscoring that climate change is shifting the bugs' patterns. Mosquitoes can hide out in human structures to survive icy temperatures. The bugs are now known to live everywhere except the continent of Antarctica.

The deep-sea fangtooth has the largest teeth of any marine species relative to body size

From transparent fish to the heaviest worms on the planet, these seven creepy creatures lurk in the deep sea. Learn all about them and the unique traits that help them survive and hunt.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Coevolution of pollinators and flowering plants diversified both

The first pollinators were beetles, which consumed pollen before flowering plants existed. Over time, plants evolved to attract more insects and improve the uptake of pollen, while insects adapted their biology to enhance the capture of pollen, such as developing specialized mouthparts.

Scientists still don't know why DEET is such an effective bug repellent

This chemical, used to keep ticks, fleas, mosquitoes, and other nuisance bugs away, is used by an estimated one-third of the US population and has been available to consumers since 1957. Researchers theorize that multiple mechanisms may be at work to deter bugs, including perhaps masking or confusing bugs' olfactory receptors.

See this diverse list of vector-borne diseases

Human illnesses caused by parasites, viruses, and bacteria, and transmitted by a living organism—often small, bloodsucking ones like mosquitoes, ticks, and sandflies—are known as vector-borne diseases. That carrier is called a vector. These diseases disproportionately affect the poorest populations in tropical and subtropical areas.

Rare Jurassic-era insect found outside Arkansas Walmart

An entomologist on his way to buy milk sighted a giant lacewing, a rare insect not seen in the US for fifty years. The species has been present on earth for at least 160 million years, but has become incredibly rare in North America.

Depending on environment, aliens' bodies would have wide-ranging possibilities

Humans tend to imagine aliens as humanlike, but that's probably unlikely. From small space spiders to metallic carnivores, life on other planets—and how we could interact with it—is difficult to imagine.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Visualize every brand that AB InBev owns

The giant beverage holding company AB InBev owns many, many more brands than just Budweiser and Bud Light. From Africa to Asia and beyond, this image helps visualize the immense number of brands that AB InBev is responsible for.

Tardigrades average about half a millimeter in size, with rear legs used for grasping

Their physiology and size, which is even smaller in the tun state, allow them to be carried by the wind and latch onto moist surfaces. They have been found in ocean trenches approximately 5 kilometers deep and at altitudes of six kilometers in the Himalayas.

View some of the species named after David Attenborough

Acisoma attenboroughi is a dragonfly from Madagascar named in honor of Attenborough's 90th birthday. Stating they liked watching Attenborough's documentaries with their family, the discoverer of a flightless weevil from Indonesia named it Trigonopterus attenboroughi in 2014. A Peruvian frog was named Prisimantis attenboroughi in 2014 to honor Attenborough for raising awareness of wildlife conservation.

What are the ten largest deserts?

Read this article to learn more about the ten biggest deserts in the world—including what their climates are like, where they can be found, and just how big they actually are. Did you know, for instance, that Antarctica is home to the world’s...

Canine inspectors can help detect potential carriers of invasive insects

At ports of entry in the US, Customs and Border Protection agents use dogs to sniff for forbidden foods and other items that are known to harbor invasive pests. Agents also physically inspect items such as flowers to prevent entry by species that may harm US agriculture.

An inventory of ancient trees in the United Kingdom

The world is filled with trees that are hundreds—if not thousands—of years old, and the UK's Woodland Trust believes each one deserves the same protections great cathedrals and castles receive. This active database invites users to peruse...

Only 40% of city-destroying asteroids have been detected

Statistical modeling shows that while we have identified the majority of extinction-level asteroids, smaller asteroids that can cause significant damage remain elusive. Some asteroids, like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk in 2013, can't be detected ahead of time since they come from the sun's direction.

Astrobee is a free-floating robotic system helping with routine tasks on the ISS

Three cube-shaped robots use electric fans to fly through the microgravity environment of the International Space Station. They are equipped with cameras and sensors that allow them to "see" and navigate their surroundings to take inventory, document experiments, and move cargo.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Animal phobias are likely the most common type of phobias, followed by an extreme fear of heights.

Scientists have struggled to pin down Ebola's natural reservoir species for decades, but the available evidence suggests that it's very likely fruit and insect-eating bats found in Africa.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Hookworm infection, though risky, may help fight certain autoimmune conditions by tamping down the immune system's inflammatory response.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.