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About the Bug forum

Red-headed cardinal beetle, Pyrochroa serraticornis

Welcome to the Museum’s Bug forum, which is here to help you identify bugs that are commonly found in homes, gardens, parks, allotments and the countryside in the UK.

The term ‘bug’ is the most widely used name for insects, but this forum also covers non-insect groups such as spiders, centipedes, millipedes and woodlice. These are all collectively part of the group called arthropods.

You can use the forum to make comments and add your own digital photographs, along with information such as where you found the bug, the time of year, and any notable behaviour. The Museum's expert entomologists will then try to identify it for you.

Keep watching as the astonishing diversity of UK invertebrates reveals itself.

Communities

  Discussions Documents Videos Blog posts
Ants 4      
Bees 45      
Beetles 74      
Butterflies 12      
Caterpillars 61      
Centipedes and millipedes 4      
Dragonflies and damselflies 16      
Grasshoppers and crickets 15      
Household pests 7      
Larvae (immature bugs) 20      
Moths 51      
Spiders 68      
True bugs 20      
True flies 55      
Woodlice 5      
Wasps 36      

Bug forum archive

To browse older discussions in the Bug forum, visit the archive.

Bug forum archive

To identify a bug for yourself, you can also visit our image galleries where there are pictures of different species of common bug.

Identify bugs

Who we are

We are a team of Museum scientists who run the Identification and Advisory Service. Our special interests include fossils, rocks, plants, insects and other creatures and we are dedicated to answering your natural history questions.

Our names on this forum are:



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Photography tips

What do the experts need to be able to identify your specimen from a photograph?

Read their tips on taking wildlife photographs.