Insects Galleries

Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies : Hymenoptera is a diverse order of insects that contains wasps, bees, and sawflies. Many species are parasitic on other insects and are important in biological control of pests. Several groups have evolved complex social behavior, particularly in the bees and ants.

Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies

Bountiful Bugs : True Bugs The insect order Hemiptera is an abundant and diverse assemblage that includes hoppers, cicadas, aphids, scale insects, and others. These insects have beak-like mouthparts specialized for piercing/sucking.

Bountiful Bugs

Beautiful Beetles : Beetles are older than the dinosaurs and contain more described species than any other order of insects.

Beautiful Beetles

Fabulous Flies : Flies are the most underappreciated of the major insect orders. While they are best known for pests like the domestic house fly and their association with mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, in truth the harmful species are a small minority. These insects are the most adept of all the flying animals, they were instrumental in building the science of genetics, and they are among the most important pollinators of flowering plants.

Fabulous Flies

A Plague of Bed Bugs : Bed Bugs are re-emerging as a major urban pest after half a century of relative dormancy. These wingless insects take blood meals at night, hiding during the day in dark crevices. Below are images of the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius.

A Plague of Bed Bugs

Amazing Arachnids : Amazing Arachnids Images of the eight-legged arthropods among us.

Amazing Arachnids

Tremendous Termites : Termites These ubiquitous wood-feeding insects are social descendants of cockroaches. Colonies are composed of reproductive males and females, sterile soldiers, and immature stages that perform as workers. Below are images of termites from around the world.

Tremendous Termites

Stick Insects : Stick Insects

Stick Insects

Honey Bees & Beekeeping : Honey Bees & Beekeeping

Honey Bees & Beekeeping

Lovely Lepidoptera : Lepidoptera (butterflies & moths) is one of the greatest lineages of insects, holding hundreds of thousands of species. Larvae are the planet's predominant herbivores. Adult Lepidopterans can be uniquely recognized by their two pairs of scale-covered wings.

Lovely Lepidoptera

Household Pests : Household Pests

Household Pests

Alluring Lacewings : Neuroptera is a smaller order of holometabolous insects containing the lacewings, antlions, owlflies, and relatives. Most species are predatory, and adults typically have two pairs of large, lacey wings.

Alluring Lacewings

Magnificent Mantids : Magnificent MantidsPreying mantises are an order (Mantodea) of large predatory insects recognizable by their spiny raptorial forelegs. Over 2000 species occur worldwide.

Magnificent Mantids

Bark Lice : Psocoptera - Bark Lice are a large, diverse, and underappreciated group of hemimetabolous insects found worldwide. Most species feed on lichen and fungi, but members of one well-known lineage, the true lice (not pictured here), have become important parasites of vertebrates.

Bark Lice

Pest Insect Microstock : Stock Pictures of Pest Insects To license these files for a commercial website or app without the watermark, click on the "buy" button above each image and select the "download" tab. A one-time, $34.95 fee permits royalty-free use of all the individual images in the file. To purchase a high-quality print on archival photographic paper, click the "buy" button and select "prints". Prints make a handy field guide and are priced starting at only $2.74 for a 5x7".

Pest Insect Microstock

all images and text © Alex Wild 2001-2013