69 insects containing the letter E — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are insects that contain the letter E anywhere in the name. Each of the 69 insects below opens to a full profile.
Tiny beetles that bore beneath tree bark to lay eggs in galleries — under normal conditions they kill only weakened trees, but when populations explode during drought or after storm damage, they can kill millions of healthy trees across entire forests; the European spruce bark beetle has killed more trees than any other insect in European history.
A small reddish-brown blood-feeding insect that hides in mattresses and furniture by day, emerging at night to feed on sleeping humans — making a global comeback since the 2000s after near-eradication in the mid-20th century.
A large, hard-shelled beetle whose males sport antler-like mandibles used for ritualized combat over females, a member of the most species-rich animal order on Earth.
The sulphur-yellow butterfly that heralds spring — males are an unmistakable lemon-yellow, females a paler greenish-white; one of the longest-lived British butterflies, spending the winter as an adult hibernating among ivy and evergreen leaves, then emerging on warm February days to become the first butterfly many people see each year.
A large, fuzzy, surprisingly cold-tolerant social bee that pollinates many crops honeybees can't reach — beloved by gardeners, declining alarmingly across multiple species.
A brilliantly coloured day-flying moth of chalk downland and coastal grassland — the six-spot burnet has six vivid red spots on metallic blue-black forewings, a warning colouration that advertises its toxicity; burnet moths produce hydrogen cyanide from their own tissues as a chemical defence, making them poisonous to predators; conspicuous in sunshine on downland flowers, flying weakly but apparently without concern for predators.
A large orange-and-black butterfly famous for an annual multi-generation migration of up to 4,800 km between Canada and central Mexico.
One of the most economically damaging household insects in Britain — the adult is a harmless tiny pollen-feeder, but its larvae are the notorious "woolly bears" that devour wool carpets, stored clothing, taxidermy specimens, and museum collections; infestations can destroy irreplaceable textiles within months.
The larval stage of butterflies and moths — voracious eating machines that can consume 27,000 times their birth weight before pupating, with thousands of species ranging from harmless monarchs to dangerous puss caterpillars.
A fast-moving multi-legged predatory arthropod (technically not an insect but commonly grouped with them) — its venomous front "fangs" make it one of the few terrestrial invertebrates capable of delivering a painful bite to humans.
Large, clumsy, nocturnal beetles that blunder noisily into windows and lights on warm summer evenings — the adults are harmless leaf-grazers but the larvae (white C-shaped grubs) live in soil for 3–4 years eating plant roots, damaging lawns and crops; badgers and rooks dig up turf to find them.
Moths with transparent wings that convincingly mimic wasps and bees — the hornet moth looks exactly like a hornet; other species mimic bumblebees or wasps so precisely that even experienced naturalists hesitate; adults are active by day and fly fast; larvae bore in tree trunks, stems, and roots for 2–3 years.
A beetle that escapes predators by snapping its body to launch itself into the air with an audible click — a remarkable mechanical hinge mechanism that can catapult the beetle up to 30 cm high.
The world's most destructive potato pest — a striped yellow-and-black beetle native to the Rocky Mountains that spread across North America and then Europe by the early 20th century, capable of stripping entire potato fields bare; Britain has so far kept it out through strict biosecurity controls.
A ragged-winged butterfly of woodland edges and hedgerows — named for the small white comma-shaped mark on the underside of its hindwing; the scalloped, jagged wing outline gives roosting adults a dead-leaf appearance of startling realism; common in England and Wales, the comma has expanded its range northward in recent decades.
A long-legged, gangly fly often mistaken for a giant mosquito — harmless as an adult, but whose larvae (leatherjackets) are significant lawn and turf pests that consume grass roots from below.
A nocturnal insect known for the male's incessant chirping, originally from Asia and now naturalized worldwide as a pet-food, fishing-bait, and human-food crop.
A common name applied to several different long-legged arachnids — including harvestmen (which aren't spiders), cellar spiders, and crane flies (an actual insect) — none of which are dangerous to humans despite persistent myths.
A slender relative of the dragonfly that holds its wings folded together over its back at rest — graceful aerial hunters of stream and pond edges, distinguishable from dragonflies by their delicate build.
A large family of dark-coloured, flightless desert beetles — including the mealworm beetle and the famous Namib fog-basking beetle that harvests drinking water from coastal fog on its textured back.
An ancient-wood-eating beetle whose larvae bore through structural timber in old buildings for up to 13 years — the ticking sound made by adults knocking their heads against wood to attract mates was historically heard in deathbed vigils and gave the beetle its sinister name; it has damaged medieval roofs across Britain and Europe.
An insect that feeds, reproduces, and navigates by animal dung — it rolls dung balls away from the pile, buries them, and lays eggs inside; the ancient Egyptians considered the scarab dung beetle sacred and a symbol of resurrection.
A nocturnal insect with prominent rear pincers and a famous (false) reputation for crawling into human ears, an attentive mother to its eggs and young.
Britain's only day-flying member of the silk moth family — the male emperor moth is one of the most spectacular insects on British heathland, with large owl-like eyespots on all four wings; the male can detect a female's pheromone from up to 11 km away; the caterpillar is a vivid green and black jewel, and the silk cocoon was once harvested.
An aggressive, venom-injecting red-brown ant whose painful sting produces a burning sensation and a characteristic white pustule — one of the world's most damaging invasive insects, responsible for billions in annual agricultural and ecological losses.
A bioluminescent beetle whose flashing courtship signals light up summer evenings, with each species using a distinctive flash pattern to find mates.
A wingless blood-feeding parasite that jumps astonishing distances relative to its size — agent of the medieval Black Death, perpetual pet nuisance, and one of evolution's most successful designs.
The world's greatest jumper relative to body size — the common froghopper can jump 70 cm straight up, accelerating at 400 g, which is greater than the force experienced by a fighter pilot in a dogfight; the larvae are hidden inside "cuckoo spit" — the white froth seen on plant stems each spring.
The heaviest insect on Earth — a male goliath beetle in its larval stage can weigh up to 100 grams, more than a small bird; the adults are strikingly patterned in black and white and can reach 110 mm in length; found in the tropical rainforests of Africa, they are popular in the insect-keeping hobby.
A jumping insect with powerful hind legs and short antennae, eaten across many human cultures and capable, in certain species, of transforming into devastating swarming locusts.
Britain's only green butterfly — the vivid emerald underside of its wings makes it one of the most beautiful small butterflies of spring; the upperwing is a dull brown, making it effectively invisible when perched on brown vegetation, but when it opens its wings momentarily in sunlight the green underside flashes brilliantly; associated with gorse, broom, and bilberry on heathland and downland.
A large, fast-moving, predatory beetle that hunts at night — one of the gardener's best allies, consuming slugs, aphids, and other pests by the thousand, and a key component of healthy soil ecosystems.
A flying social insect that pollinates roughly a third of human food crops and produces honey from the nectar of flowers.
A large social wasp with a particularly painful sting — including the European hornet that builds paper nests in tree hollows and the notorious Asian giant hornet, the "murder hornet" that decimates honeybee colonies.
A large biting fly with painful blood-feeding females — capable of cutting through skin with scissor-like mouthparts, leaving wounds that bleed freely and persist for hours, with major impacts on livestock and outdoor activities.
The master mimics of the insect world — hoverflies are entirely harmless flies that mimic the yellow-and-black warning patterns of bees and wasps with remarkable accuracy; they hover motionless mid-air and visit flowers as important pollinators; the larvae include important aphid predators and the bizarre "rat-tailed maggot" that breathes through a snorkel tube while living in polluted water.
A common name for several stout-bodied scarab beetles that emerge in early summer in North America, the bumbling, light-attracted nighttime fliers familiar to anyone with a porch light.
A delicate green or brown insect with large, elaborately veined transparent wings and golden eyes — whose larvae are ferocious aphid hunters earning them the nickname "aphid lion," making lacewings one of the most beneficial insects in gardens and agriculture.
A blood-feeding annelid worm — used in medicine for over 2,500 years, with modern medical leeches still approved by the FDA for restoring blood flow to reattached body parts and skin grafts.
Beetles whose antennae are often longer than their entire body — the larvae bore through wood for years before emerging as adults; some of the most destructive tree pests in the world, while others are important wood-decay specialists in old-growth forests.
A wingless parasitic insect — head lice are particularly common among schoolchildren, body lice can transmit serious diseases including epidemic typhus, and pubic lice are a sexually transmitted parasite.
Tiny non-biting flies that emerge in massive swarms from lakes and rivers — looking like mosquitoes but harmless to humans, with critical roles as fish food and as bioindicators of water quality.
A multi-legged arthropod with two pairs of legs per body segment (unlike centipedes' one) — slow-moving detritivores essential to forest decomposition, with some giant African species reaching nearly 40 cm long.
A tiny biting midge so small it slips through standard window screens, leaving disproportionately painful itchy welts — the bane of summer evenings in coastal and wetland areas.
A strange, flightless beetle with a swollen, soft abdomen and a fascinating life history — females lay thousands of eggs, the tiny larvae (triungulins) climb flowers and hitch a ride on mining bees back to their burrows, where they feed on the bee's pollen stores and develop through multiple larval stages; when threatened, the beetles exude a blistering oil (cantharidin) from their leg joints.
A delicate white butterfly of spring hedgerows — males have vivid orange wingtips that give the species its name, while females are white with black tips, easily mistaken for other whites; the underside of both sexes is marbled green and white, providing perfect camouflage on cow parsley flowers where they roost.
The most economically damaging forest pest in Europe — the large pine weevil is a dark, mottled brown weevil whose adults feed on the bark of young conifer trees, girdling and killing transplanted seedlings; it is the primary threat to commercial conifer replanting across Scandinavia and northern Europe, where it can destroy entire newly planted coupes; adults feed at night, concealing themselves under bark and debris by day.
A regional Northeastern U.S. name for tiny biting midges, especially common in coastal Maine and the Maritime provinces — small enough to bite through screens and disproportionately painful for their size.
The single reproductive female of a honey bee colony, mother to all 50,000+ workers, possessing distinctive elongated body, a smoother stinger she uses repeatedly, and a lifespan many times longer than worker bees.
The apex predators of the insect world — powerfully built flies that hunt other insects on the wing, seizing prey mid-air with spiny legs and injecting a paralysing venom, then sucking the prey dry; they tackle prey larger than themselves including wasps, bees, and dragonflies.
A large family of beetles with characteristically short wing covers that expose most of the abdomen — the most species-rich beetle family, playing crucial roles as predators, scavengers, and even ant-colony infiltrators.
A large, often metallic-shelled beetle of the Scarabaeidae family — most famously the dung beetles of African savannas, sacred in ancient Egyptian religion as a symbol of rebirth.
A small, primitive, wingless insect with a silver-gray scaly body and a long-evolutionary lineage, found in damp homes feeding on starches, paper, and book bindings.
A soft-bodied, colourful beetle named for its scarlet-and-black colour reminiscent of a British redcoat soldier — an important pollinator that visits flowers for pollen while hunting smaller insects.
An eight-legged predatory arachnid (technically not an insect but commonly grouped with them) — over 50,000 species worldwide, with prey-capture techniques ranging from web-building to ambush, jumping, lassoing, and net-casting.
Britain's largest insect — the male stag beetle's enormous antler-like jaws can be longer than his body but are used for wrestling rival males rather than biting; a declining species dependent on rotting wood in old gardens and ancient parkland; adults do not feed and live only a few weeks as adults after 3–7 years as grubs.
Masters of camouflage that resemble twigs, leaves, or sticks — over 3,000 species worldwide, with some Asian species reaching 60 cm long, including several capable of parthenogenetic reproduction without males.
An ancient aquatic insect whose larvae are the gold standard of clean water — stonefly larvae require highly oxygenated, cold, unpolluted streams to survive, making them invaluable biological indicators of water quality; adults are drab, flat-winged insects that rest on bankside stones and vegetation, rarely flying far from the stream where they developed; one of the most ancient insect orders, with fossils over 300 million years old.
A wood-eating social insect — actually a derived cockroach — that builds elaborate colonies, decomposes vast quantities of plant matter, and causes billions in property damage annually.
A large nocturnal moth with cryptic gray-brown forewings camouflaged like tree bark, concealing brilliantly colored hindwings flashed in startle displays to confuse predators.
A wingless wasp despite the name "ant," covered in dense bright fur, with a famously painful sting earning the nickname "cow killer" — the female only; males have wings and don't sting.
The most damaging garden pest in Britain — its soil-dwelling larvae eat through the roots of container plants and garden favourites including fuchsia, begonia, heuchera, and strawberry, causing sudden plant collapse; the adult is a dull black beetle that notches leaf edges at night and cannot fly.
Aquatic beetles that have evolved to live in ponds, streams, and lakes — the great diving beetle is Britain's most spectacular aquatic insect, an aggressive predator that will attack fish, frogs, and newts; it carries an air bubble under its wing cases to breathe underwater and can fly between ponds at night.
An insect that walks on the surface film of still or slow-moving water using hydrophobic leg hairs that trap air — an iconic example of surface-tension locomotion and a model organism for materials science research.
A beetle with a distinctive elongated snout — among the largest insect families with over 95,000 species, including notorious agricultural pests of grain, cotton, fruit, and bark.
A small, oval beetle that gyrates in tight circles on the water surface — equipped with divided eyes that see above and below the waterline simultaneously, and with sensory organs that detect surface ripples like a sonar system.
A tiny sap-sucking insect pest that colonizes the undersides of leaves, weakening plants and transmitting viruses — a major problem in greenhouse agriculture and tropical food crops worldwide.
A small blue butterfly of California's San Francisco peninsula — extinct since the 1940s, the first North American butterfly species lost to habitat destruction, and the namesake of the Xerces Society for invertebrate conservation.
A tiny, obscure insect in the small order Zoraptera — sometimes called "angel insects" — known mostly to specialists, with a strange dimorphism and a phylogenetic position that has long puzzled entomologists.
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