51 insects containing the letter R — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are insects that contain the letter R anywhere in the name. Each of the 51 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.
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 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.
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 large, fast, exceptionally hardy insect that has been on Earth for 200+ million years and is now a near-universal urban pest, the species behind most "cockroach" stories.
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.
The soil-dwelling caterpillar larvae of noctuid moths — one of the most destructive garden and agricultural pests, cutting seedlings off at soil level overnight, yet the adult moths are harmless and often beautiful.
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.
A large, fast-flying dragonfly that migrates thousands of kilometers across North America in a multi-generational journey, an ancient predator with extraordinary aerial agility.
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.
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.
A small fly species (Drosophila melanogaster) that became the most important laboratory animal in genetics research — the workhorse of 20th-century genetics, with much of modern biology built on fruit fly studies.
A bioluminescent insect larva (or wingless adult female of certain beetles) that produces a steady greenish glow to attract prey or mates — including the New Zealand cave-dwelling species that creates one of the world's most spectacular natural light displays.
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 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.
The caterpillar of geometer moths, distinguished by its looping "measure-the-cloth" gait — pulling rear feet up to front feet, then arching forward — and famous in nursery songs.
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 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 small, light-brown cockroach species responsible for nearly all kitchen-pest cockroach infestations worldwide — fast-breeding, hard to eliminate, and the bane of restaurants and apartment buildings.
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.
An ancient arachnid with venomous tail and pincered front claws — among the oldest land animals on Earth (430 million years), with surprising longevity and bizarre fluorescence under UV light.
A bizarre-looking woodland insect named for the male's upturned, scorpion-like tail — actually the genitalia, not a sting; scorpionflies have a long, beak-like rostrum, mottled brown and yellow wings, and a peculiar habit of stealing prey from spider webs; they are significant scavengers of dead insects and small animals, and are among the oldest winged insect lineages.
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.
A tiny soil-dwelling hexapod that leaps into the air using a spring-loaded tail appendage — among the most abundant land animals on Earth, with millions per square meter of healthy soil playing a critical role in decomposition and nutrient cycling.
A large, hairy spider with a fearsome reputation that's mostly undeserved — about 1,000 species worldwide, with most posing minimal danger to humans, and the giant Goliath birdeater being the largest spider species at 30 cm leg span.
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.
Small, bell-shaped moths whose caterpillars are among the most damaging to gardens and orchards — they roll leaves into shelters bound with silk and eat the enclosed tissue; the codling moth (apple's worst enemy) and the light brown apple moth are tortrix moths, and European vine moth damages grapevines worldwide.
A large nocturnal moth with cryptic gray-brown forewings camouflaged like tree bark, concealing brilliantly colored hindwings flashed in startle displays to confuse predators.
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 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 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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