Author: Hannah Whitlock

Black fuzzy caterpillars are identified by the second color: brown means woolly bear, red means leopard moth, white tufts mean tussock and irritation.

The imperial moth is a yellow giant that pupates underground instead of spinning a cocoon. Here is how to identify it and why it is vanishing up north.

Up to 400 mantis nymphs hatch from one foam egg case and start eating each other within hours. Here is what to know and what to do with an ootheca.

Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweed and cut trenches to drain its latex. Here is how to identify them and why tropical milkweed causes harm.

Scorpions eat live arthropods and can survive a year without a meal. Here is how they hunt without seeing, the two-stage venom, and what to feed a pet.

Male southern house spiders are mistaken for brown recluses constantly. Here is how to tell them apart and why this harmless spider is worth keeping.

Antennae length settles it instantly. Here is how crickets and grasshoppers differ in sound, hearing, diet and behavior, plus where katydids and locusts fit.

Wolf spider mothers carry their egg sac on their spinnerets and then their young on their backs. Here is what spiderlings look like and what to do indoors.

Ticks have eight legs and attach for days, bed bugs have six and feed in minutes. Here is how to tell them apart and why the risks differ so much.

Carpet beetles cannot bite. The rash is an allergic reaction to larval bristles, which is why it returns until you find the source.