Bug Identifier
Choose what you can see. You don't need all three answers; even one helps narrow it down.
All the pests in this tool
| Pest | Legs | Colors | Where | Look for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bed Bugs | 6 | brown, orange | Bedroom, Living Room | An apple-seed-sized, flat, oval reddish-brown bug with no wings, usually found along mattress seams together with tiny dark fecal spots and pale shed skins. |
| Fruit Flies | 6 | tan, black | Kitchen | A tiny fly with a tan front half, a darker rear and bright red eyes that hovers around ripe fruit, wine or the trash can. |
| Fungus Gnats | 6 | black | Living Room, Kitchen | A slender black fly with long legs and antennae that flutters weakly around the soil surface of houseplants. |
| Fleas | 6 | brown | Living Room, Bedroom | A pinhead-sized, reddish-brown insect flattened side to side that jumps instead of flying, often spotted on pets or on white socks around the ankles. |
| Ants | 6 | black, brown | Kitchen, Bathroom, Garden | Wingless workers with a pinched waist and elbowed antennae, often marching in a single-file trail toward sweets or grease. |
| Ticks | 8 | brown, orange | Garden | A flat, teardrop-shaped body with eight legs and no visible separate head. Lone star females have a single white dot on the back, dog ticks have whitish patterning, and blacklegged females are reddish-orange with black legs. |
| House Mouse | 4 | brown, tan | Kitchen, Living Room | A small, slender gray-to-light-brown mouse with large ears and a nearly hairless tail about as long as its body, leaving rice-sized dark droppings along walls. |
| Cockroaches | 6 | brown, tan | Kitchen, Bathroom | German: light brown, about 1/2 inch, with two dark stripes behind the head; American: reddish-brown, up to 2 inches, with a pale band around the edge of the shield behind the head. |
| Drain Flies | 6 | tan, black | Bathroom, Kitchen | A tiny gray, hairy fly with wide moth-like wings folded roof-style over its body, usually resting on bathroom walls near a drain. |
| Brown Marmorated Stink Bug | 6 | brown | Living Room, Bedroom, Garden | A shield-shaped, mottled brown bug about 5/8 inch long with white bands on its antennae and alternating light and dark bands along the edge of the abdomen. |
| Spiders | 8 | brown, tan | Living Room, Bedroom, Bathroom, Garden | Eight legs, two body sections (a front part bearing the legs and a rounded abdomen), and no wings or antennae. Insects have six legs and three body sections. |
| Carpenter Bees | 6 | black | Garden | A bumble-bee-sized bee whose upper abdomen is shiny, bare black instead of fuzzy, often hovering near a round 1/2-inch hole in wood with sawdust below. |
| Subterranean Termites | 6 | black, tan | Living Room, Garden | Swarmers are small dark-brown to black insects with straight beaded antennae, a thick waist and four equal-length wings that break off easily; workers are soft and creamy white. |
| Brown Recluse | 8 | brown, tan | Bedroom, Bathroom | Uniformly tan to brown legs and abdomen with no stripes, bands or spines. A dark violin-shaped mark on the front body section, with the violin's neck pointing back. Six eyes in three pairs, which you need a hand lens to see. |
| Silverfish | 6 | tan | Bathroom, Kitchen, Living Room | A shiny silver-gray, wingless insect shaped like a teardrop, with long antennae and three thin tail bristles, that darts away quickly when uncovered. |
| Mosquitoes | 6 | brown, black | Garden, Bedroom | A slender fly with long, thin legs and a long, needle-like beak that lands on skin to feed. The wings are covered in tiny scales. |
| Carpet Beetles | 6 | black, brown | Bedroom, Living Room | Adults are rounded, ladybug-shaped beetles smaller than a grain of rice, often mottled white, brown and yellow, usually found on windowsills; larvae are small, hairy, striped 'fuzzy worms'. |
| Wolf Spiders | 8 | brown, tan | Living Room, Bedroom, Garden | A large, hairy brown-to-gray spider that runs along floors. Its legs often have lighter bands, and its eyes shine green in a flashlight beam at night. Females may carry spiderlings on their backs. |
| Black Widow Spiders | 8 | black | Garden | Adult female: a shiny jet-black spider with a large, round abdomen and a red-to-orange hourglass mark on the underside. Young spiders and males are smaller and tan or gray with light stripes. |
| Chiggers | 6 | orange | Garden | Usually seen only as clusters of very itchy red bumps around the ankles, waistband or other tight-clothing spots that appear a few hours after being outdoors. The mite itself is a reddish-orange speck barely visible to the eye. |
| Boxelder Bug | 6 | black, orange | Living Room, Garden | A flat black bug about 1/2 inch long with three red-orange stripes behind the head and red-orange edges on its wings. |
| House Centipede | many | tan, brown | Bathroom | A flattened yellowish-gray body about an inch long with three dark stripes and 15 pairs of very long, banded legs that make it look 3-4 inches across. |
| Aphids | 6 | green | Garden, Living Room | Pear-shaped, usually green, with two tiny tubes sticking out the back end, often packed together on the newest growth. |