Bug Identifier: Common Garden Insects

Gardens are fascinating places. Take a closer look at the many creatures that live there.

By Carol Ann Harlos
Updated on November 1, 2024
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Identify common garden insects with these garden bugs’ pictures and descriptions and become an expert bug identifier.

I never use pesticides in my gardens. To do so would interfere with the life cycles of some incredible creatures! Here’s a sampling of some creatures I’ve seen in my gardens to inspire readers to take note of their own.

Garden Bug Identifiers

I’ve glimpsed a thread-waisted wasp carrying grass with its front legs. The life cycle of wasps is egg, then larva, then pupa, then adult. The adults emerge by early summer. The female wasp stings a cricket or other insect to paralyze it. She carries her prey back to her nest and lays her eggs right into its body, and the larvae eat the paralyzed prey and complete their development. (Sometimes, people will find the grass of an abandoned nest and a dead cricket in the well of a window or above a door and wonder how it got there!)

Eastern Gray Treefrog

In August, I spotted an eastern gray treefrog (Dryophytes versicolor). I was watering some potted plants behind the house (and using the hose to wash the windows). I thought I saw a leaf stuck on the side of the house, so I directed the water toward it to wash it down, and it landed on the back porch. It was greenish, wart-like, with pads on its toes, indicating it was a tree frog. This frog can camouflage itself, from gray to green or brown. Our house is blue, so green was as close as it could get! Its legs have a dark banded pattern. The undersides of its legs are yellowish. Its skin is rather lumpy.

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