22 Common Insects You Can Find in Mississippi (2025)
Thousands of insect species live in Mississippi!
Trying to list them all would be impossible. So below, you will find the most common and abundant bugs that live in Mississippi. I did my best to find an array of different types, such as bees, beetles, flies, mantises, ants, etc.
Also, this article ONLY lists INSECTS. Please check out these other ID guides if you are searching for something else:
22 Common Insects in Mississippi:
#1. Eastern Firefly
- Photinus pyralis
Also known as Big Dipper Fireflies.
- Their outer wings are dark brown with yellow margins, and their head has two orange spots.
- They have six legs, two antennae, and compound eyes.
- The last segment of their abdomens lights up and flashes bright yellow-green.
The best time to see these insects in Mississippi is on a warm summer night!
Odds are you’ve caught one of them when you were a child. 🙂
But interestingly, Eastern Fireflies aren’t flies at all; they’re a type of beetle that thrives in open grassy areas, woodland edges, and around streams.
The light they produce comes from an organ under their body called a lantern. This lantern produces light through a chemical reaction between luciferin, luciferase, and oxygen. The reaction forms a new molecule and releases energy in the form of light.
This light serves to warn predators that these insects taste bad, in addition to attracting mates.
The males are the insects you see lighting up the night skies. They flash and await a response from one of the flightless or nearly flightless females somewhere on the ground below.
It’s not just the adults that produce light. Eastern Firefly eggs and pupae emit a slight glow, too, protecting them from predators.
#2. European/Western Honey Bee
- Apis mellifera
- They are primarily red or brown with black bands and orange-yellow rings on their abdomens.
- They have hairy thoraxes and slightly hairy abdomens.
The Western Honey Bee is one of the most common insects in Mississippi.
Unlike most bee species, Western Honey Bees form perennial colonies which survive for years. These colonies comprise about 30,000 to 80,000 bees, most of which are female, including the queen and worker bees.
Defending the hive can cost these bees their lives. When a Western Honeybee stings, usually its barbed stinger becomes lodged in its target. The attached venom sac and musculature are pulled from the bee, resulting in the bee’s death.
Foraging is hard work! A single worker bee flies at about 15 miles per hour and usually visits 50 to 100 flowers in a single trip.
Despite all this effort, the average worker only produces about 1.5 teaspoons of honey in her lifetime.
This honey is tasty for humans but is also essential for the hive. Workers feed honey to the larvae and feed on it themselves during the winter in temperate climates.
#3. Monarch
- Danaus plexippus
- Monarch butterflies have a wingspan of roughly 4 inches (10 cm).
- Their recognizable coloring is a “stained glass” pattern of orange with black veins. White dots line the outside edge of the wings.
- Caterpillars are plump, with black, white, and yellow bands and tentacles on each end of its body.
Monarchs are easily one of the most recognized insects in Mississippi!
They are famous for their color pattern and migration. Look for Monarchs anywhere there is milkweed, which is the only food the caterpillars eat.
Most people are familiar with the declining population of Monarchs. Planting milkweed and other native flowering plants is the best way to help them.
Interestingly, Monarchs are toxic to most animals and at the very least, taste bad! This poison comes from the caterpillar’s diet, which is almost entirely made up of milkweed. Toxins from the milkweed plant stay in them, producing a bitter taste and poisonous effects.
During migration, usually in mid-September, you may even see groups of hundreds flying south!
#4. Seven-Spotted Ladybug
- Coccinella septempunctata
- They have red bodies with six black spots and one big black mark on the middle of their wings (hence their name).
- The head is black with two white dots.
- They are also known as Seven-spotted Ladybird and C-7.
When you think of ladybugs, you probably picture something similar to the Seven-spotted Ladybug!
Almost everyone loves them because of the MASSIVE amounts of aphids they eat. This makes them very useful in controlling the pest population of aphids in grasslands and farms.
Surprisingly, this insect is NOT native to Mississippi.
They were introduced here from Europe as a biological control against aphids. Interestingly, while they are thriving in North America, Seven-spotted Ladybugs are declining in their native ranges in Europe.
Check out this video of the Seven-spotted Ladybug, as it is an eating machine!
#5. Asian Lady Beetle
- Harmonia axyridis
Also known as the Multicoloured Asian Ladybug, Harlequin Ladybird, and Japanese Ladybug.
- Adults have domed bodies and are usually about .25 inches (.6 cm) long.
- Their coloration may range from yellowish-orange to red or black with variable black, orange, or red spots and markings.
The Asian Lady Beetle is NOT a true ladybug. It is similar in how it looks but not in how it acts. It is native to eastern Asia and was brought over to help control aphids like other ladybugs.
Once introduced, this species spread quickly through North America. Many people call it the “Halloween Beetle,” as it often invades homes in Mississippi during October to overwinter. I know we get MANY Asian Lady Beetles coming into our house each year when the weather turns colder!
This species is considered one of the world’s most invasive insects. Their bodily fluids have an unpleasant odor and can stain fabric, so try not to crush this beetle if you find it inside!
The easiest way to identify this beetle is by the black markings on its head that look like the letters “W” or “M.”
Check out this video of how big of a problem the Asian Lady Beetle can be before winter.
#6. Eastern Bumble Bee
- Bombus impatiens
- They have black abdomens, legs, and heads.
- Their thoraxes are primarily yellow, with a circular patch of black hairs between the base of their wings.
- They have short, even hair all over their bodies and four wings.
The Eastern Bumble Bee is an important pollinating insect in Mississippi!
They’re common in fields, woodlands, gardens, and backyards, where they live in annual underground nests, each containing about 300 to 500 bees.
Look for these insects buzzing about your yard, gathering pollen and nectar.
Interestingly, Eastern Bumble Bees can see ultraviolet light. Many patterns on flowers are invisible to the human eye, but these bees can see them perfectly.
These ultraviolet patterns act as “nectar bull’s eyes,” helping the bees to find food and pollinate the flowers.
#7. Common Green Darner
- Anax junius
- Adults grow up to 3 inches (7.6 cm) long.
- Both sexes have unmarked green thoraces, bull’s eye marks on their faces, and clear wings that often become amber-tinted with age.
- Males have bluish-purple abdomens with a black stripe down the middle.
- Females may appear like males or have reddish-brown abdomens.
Green Darners are common flying insects in Mississippi.
Named for their resemblance to darning needles, these dragonflies are nearly impossible to miss! They’re also one of the largest dragonfly species alive today.
Unlike many dragonflies, some populations of Common Green Darners migrate. Particularly in winter, they travel as far south as Panama. They’re common summertime residents of the northern US and southern Canada, and occasionally, vagrant individuals are spotted well outside their normal range.
They’ve been known to show up as far away as Japan, Russia, Bermuda, France, and the UK! Researchers suspect these are individuals who were blown off course during storms.
When researchers equipped Common Green Darners with micro radio transmitters, they found that these big dragonflies traveled about 10 miles per hour (16 kph) and up to 87 miles (140 km) per day!
#8. Bald-faced Hornet
- Dolichovespula maculata
Also called the Bald-faced Aerial Yellowjacket, Bald-faced Wasp, Bald Hornet, White-faced Hornet, Blackjacket, White-tailed Hornet, Spruce Wasp, and Bull Wasp.
- They have black bodies with ivory markings on their faces, legs, thoraxes, and abdomens.
- Look for three white stripes at the ends of their bodies.
Bald-faced Hornets are named for the ivory markings on their face. Despite the name, these insects aren’t true hornets. They’re actually a type of yellow jacket.
These intimidating bugs don’t have a pleasant reputation in Mississippi.
They aggressively defend their nests and can sting repeatedly. But while their appearance and nests can be scary, they’re pretty handy to have around (as long as the nest isn’t close to human habitation).
First, the adults feed on nectar and help to pollinate flowers. In addition, they also kill and eat other types of yellowjackets! Sometimes, in early summer, a nest will be so full of yellowjacket remains that it will have a yellowish cast! Unless their nest is somewhere you’ll come into contact with it, it’s best to leave them be.
I’m sure you have spotted one of their nests before. They are large, papery, and football-shaped. The queen builds these nests by chewing wood material and mixing it with her saliva to make a paste.
#9. Eastern Yellowjacket
- Vespula maculifrons
- They are black with yellow markings.
- Their first abdominal segment has a wide, black, anchor-shaped marking.
- Cheeks have continuous yellow bands that don’t completely encircle their eyes.
Eastern Yellowjackets seem to be found in every habitat in Mississippi!
In both urban and suburban areas, you may spot them in woodlands, parks, pastures, and lawns. They’re not picky!
And unfortunately, these insects can deliver an incredibly painful sting. Make sure you don’t wander too close to their nests, which they aggressively defend! These nests can be huge, as queens produce up to 25,000 individuals over a season.
Another problem with Eastern Yellowjackets is their nests are typically underground, so it’s hard to spot one. The nests are often found in residential lawns and are inconveniently discovered while mowing. 🙂
#10. American Cockroach
- Periplaneta americana
- Shiny, reddish-brown wings, paler neck with two darker reddish-brown blotches in the center.
- Short wings, males’ wings extend beyond their abdomen.
- Also known as the Ship Cockroach, Kakerlac, and Bombay Canary.
The American Cockroach is one of the FASTEST running insects in Mississippi. Surprisingly, they are weak fliers.
Despite the name, American Cockroaches are native to Africa and the Middle East. These cockroaches were brought over hundreds of years ago on ships.
Adults are active all year round in moist and warm locations, like inside your house! These cockroaches are mostly commercial pests that infest restaurants, supermarkets, bakeries, warehouses, and shipyards. But it’s possible to find them in your house in basements, crawl spaces, and cracks in foundations.
American Cockroaches can also pick up disease-causing bacteria like Salmonella on their legs and deposit it on food they walk on. This can cause food poisoning or infections.
#11. Eastern Carpenter Bee
- Xylocopa virginica
- Black faces and round, hairy, yellow bodies.
- They have shiny black abdomens and distinct shiny black patches on their backs.
- Males have a white spot on their face.
Eastern Carpenter Bees get their name from their unique nesting style, which sets them apart from other bees. They chew perfectly round tunnels into wood using their powerful mandibles.
The queens excavate these tunnels and use them to rear young. She creates sections within the tunnel using sawdust to build walls. She places an egg on pollen or nectar within each section, which the larva eats when it hatches.
Their large size can seem intimidating to people in Mississippi, but these insects are rarely aggressive. However, they’re known to boldly defend their nests and territories from intruders like wasps. Males can’t sting but can still deliver a powerful bite!
#12. Brown-belted Bumble Bee
- Bombus griseocollis
- They have short, even hair.
- A primarily yellow thorax with a black patch between the wing bases.
- Their first abdominal segment is entirely yellow, and workers usually have a brown or reddish patch in a crescent shape on the second segment.
Brown-belted Bumble Bees are incredibly adaptable. They feed on various flowers like clovers, echinaceas, goldenrods, milkweeds, and vetches. And they have a wide range of habitats in Mississippi, including wetlands, agricultural areas, meadows, and even cities!
Brown-belted Bumble Bees live in small colonies of about 50 or fewer individuals. They nest underground or on the surface in organic matter.
These groups may be small, but they are mighty and will aggressively defend their nests from predators and parasites.
Unlike most bees, males are involved in raising the young. They will help incubate pupae by wrapping their legs around the cocoon and pumping their abdomens.
#13. Large Milkweed Bug
- Oncopeltus fasciatus
- Their pronotum (shield-like plate) between their head and wings features a black forward-pointing triangle with orange on each side.
- Each forewing has a striking pattern from front to back: an orange front-pointing triangle, a broad black band, and an orange backward-pointing triangle.
- They have long black antennae and legs.
As their name suggests, these striking insects feed primarily on milkweed. Large Milkweed Bugs use their straw-like mouthpart to pierce the plants and drink their juices.
Their bodies build up the toxic compounds from the sap that they eat. Like other species that feed on milkweed, the Large Milkweed Bug’s bright colors warn predators that they taste terrible.
Their narrow diet means you’ll find them living where milkweed grows. Look for Large Milkweed Bugs in Mississippi in open areas like roadsides, pastures, fields, and wildflower gardens.
While Large Milkweed Bugs may damage some milkweed plants, their presence is generally short and isn’t harmful to the other species depending on these plants, like Monarch Butterflies and Tussock Moths.
#14. Wheel Bug
- Arilus cristatus
- Adults reach up to 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) long.
- They’re dark and robust with long legs, antennae, and a strong beak.
- They have a characteristic dorsal crest shaped like a wheel or cog.
The Wheel Bug is one of the largest terrestrial bugs in Mississippi.
These odd-looking insects are a gardener’s favorite for their voracious, predatory appetite. They will feed on tent caterpillars, cabbage worms, Japanese beetles, Mexican bean beetles, and other pests.
These assassin bugs grip and pin prey with their front legs while piercing it with their beak to inject enzymes that paralyze the other insect and liquefy its insides. Then, the Wheel Bug inhales the fluids.
While they’re not aggressive, you should treat Wheel Bugs with respect. When handled roughly, they can deliver a bite more severe than a bee sting!
#15. Carolina Mantis
- Stagmomantis Carolina
- Adults typically reach 2 to 2.5 inches (5 to 6.4 cm) long.
- Their bodies are mottled gray, brown, or green.
- They have triangular faces, rectangular face plates, long, thin antennae, and wings reaching down their abdomen.
In Mississippi, you can find these insects in meadows and forests, often near or on flowering plants.
Carolina Mantises have incredibly sedentary lifestyles. They sometimes spend their whole life on a single plant or tree as long as food is available.
Being still is part of their strategy for capturing prey. They wait for other insects to come to the flowers, detecting them with impressive ears that capture high-frequency sounds.
Female Carolina Mantids occasionally eat their partners! This mainly occurs when food isn’t as abundant as the females need a lot of food to reproduce.
#16. Spotted Cucumber Beetle
- Diabrotica undecimpunctata
- Adults are yellow-green with 12 black spots on their forewings.
- They have black legs, heads, and beaded antennae.
- Adults are about 0.2 inches (0.5 cm) long.
These little beetles may look harmless, but they are an agricultural pest in Mississippi.
The adults feed on plants in the cucurbit family, including cucumber, squash, and melon. While feeding, they often transmit pathogens that can cause bacterial wilt or mosaic virus, killing the plants.
Spotted Cucumber Beetle larvae cause problems, too, and are often known as Southern Root Cornworms. These larvae burrow into the seeds and roots of corn and sorghum, damaging young plants.
#17. Ailanthus Webworm
- Atteva aurea
- Adults’ wingspans are 0.5-1.18 in (1.3-3 cm).
- They have orange forewings with four bands of yellow spots outlined in black.
- Their hindwings are a solid smoky gray.
Ailanthus Webworm Moths move through life quickly, going from egg to adult in as little as four weeks! They eat leafy material when they are caterpillars and metamorphose into moths quickly.
As adults, these moths pollinate by feeding on nectar from flowers. Ailanthus Webworms commonly feed on tree-of-heaven nectar, which allows them to store chemicals in their body that are dangerous to consume. Their bright coloring helps warn predators that they don’t make a good meal.
#18. Green Stink Bug
- Chinavia hilaris
- Adults are bright green with narrow yellow, orange, or reddish edges.
- They are shield-shaped, and their folded wings form an x-shape on their back.
- They emit a foul odor when harassed or crushed.
These brightly colored bugs are some of the first insects in Mississippi to become active in the spring, adding little specks of bright green to the brown of the forest floor.
Green Stink Bugs can be pretty, but many farmers and gardeners find them a nuisance. They can be found feeding on an incredible range of plants, including crops like tomatoes, soybeans, and peach trees.
Green Stink Bugs have mouthparts that are a bit like straws. They suck nutrients from plants and have a particular fondness for developing fruits and seeds.
#19. Black Carpenter Ant
- Camponotus pennsylvanicus
- Adults are dull black and have distinctive white or yellowish hairs on their abdomens.
- The largest workers are about 0.2 to 0.6 inches (0.5 to 1.6 cm) long.
- Non-worker reproductive males and females have wings.
Black Carpenter Ants are among the most common ants in Mississippi.
You can find these large ants in grasslands, deciduous forests, meadows, agricultural fields, and urban and suburban areas. As their name suggests, they prefer to build their nests in wood, often using decaying logs, deciduous trees, or wood structures.
Black Carpenter Ants aren’t picky eaters and feed on other insects, human trash, nectar, fruit, and fungi.
These ants are surprisingly long-lived! While reproductive males usually die shortly after mating, workers may live from several months to seven or more years. Queens can live for over 10 years!
#20. Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
- Scudderia furcata
- Adults usually range from 1.5 to 1.75 inches (3.8 to 4.4 cm) long.
- They are leafy-green with long green antennae but may have pinkish, brownish, or rusty tinges, especially in autumn.
- Females have a brownish or purplish ovipositor, a sword-like appendage at the tip of their abdomen.
These insects are one of the classic sounds of the night in Mississippi.
Fork-tailed Bush Katydids are one of about 250 species of katydids or “bush crickets” found in North America. Unlike true grasshoppers, they spend most of their time in trees and shrubs and rarely descend to the ground.
These bright green insects are nocturnal. They spend their nights feeding on the flowers, foliage, and fruit of the trees and shrubs they call home. Don’t worry, gardeners; they rarely cause significant damage.
Katydids can be incredibly hard to spot because they blend in perfectly with the leaves. If you get lucky, you may spot one on a tree trunk that stands out against the drab bark or around an outdoor light at night.
If you find a katydid, you should handle them with care. While not aggressive, they can give a good pinch if handled roughly.
#21. Red Imported Fire Ant (RIFA)
- Solenopsis invicta
Also known as fire ants or red ants.
- Adults are usually dark reddish brown.
- Workers measure 0.13 to 0.25 inches (0.32 to 0.64 cm) long.
- They have two nodes at the petiole (waist) and two segmented antennal clubs.
Red Imported Fire Ants are troublesome insects in Mississippi.
A single fire ant can sting repeatedly, and the colony will attack anything that disturbs their nest or food source.
These ants have venom with toxic alkaloids and proteins that can cause burning and swelling. A mature colony may contain 100,000 to 500,000 ants!
Incredibly, Red Imported Fire Ants have been observed building rafts as nearby water levels rise.
#22. Eastern Lubber Grasshopper
- Romalea microptera
Also called Florida Lubber, Florida Lubber Grasshopper, or Georgia Thumper.
- Adults range from 1.5 to 4 inches (3.8 to 10 cm) long.
- The coloration may vary, but they are usually bright yellow with black and orange accents.
- Their forewings extend about 2/3 of the way down their abdomen, and they have short hindwings.
The Eastern Lubber Grasshopper is one of the largest insects in Mississippi!
But their looks can be deceiving. Despite having wings, they are incapable of flight, and despite having robust legs, they don’t hop very well. 🙂
These heavy-bodied grasshoppers get around mostly by walking. In fact, their name, “lubber,” most likely comes from an Old English word, “lobre,” which means lazy or clumsy.
However, they do deserve a little credit. Despite being bulky, Eastern Lubbers are skillful climbers making their way up into plants and trees to feed on foliage.
Occasionally, local populations boom and can cause severe damage to gardens, crops, and citrus groves. Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers have an appetite to match their impressive size.
Learn more about the bugs that live in Mississippi:
Check out these ID guides that focus specifically on different insect families in Mississippi.
Do you need additional help identifying insects in Mississippi?
If so, check out this excellent ID guide!
Which of these insects have you seen in Mississippi?
Leave a comment below!
