Field Guide

The bold jumper, or white-spotted jumping spider, is fuzzy, makes jerky movements, jumps surprisingly long distances, and doesn't build webs. It usually has a black body with white, orange, or reddish spots on the abdomen.

The black-and-yellow garden spider is large but harmless. It sets up large, circular webs in gardens and grasslands. Lucky gardeners can host this remarkable pest exterminator all season long.

Daddy longlegs, or harvestmen, are familiar Missouri animals. They are not spiders, but opilionids. Unlike spiders, they have a fused body form and lack silk and venom glands.

The filmy dome spider is one of the most abundant woodland spiders in Missouri. Although the spider is tiny, its snare web, which looks like an upside-down silk bowl, is conspicuous throughout the year.

Striped bark scorpions are pale yellowish brown, usually with two lengthwise dark stripes on the abdomen. It is the only species of scorpion in Missouri. It occurs in glades and other dry, warm, rocky areas, and sometimes in buildings and shelters and under piles of wood, brush, or garbage.

Many blow flies are so shiny and colorful they’re called greenbottles and bluebottles. But pretty as they are, it’s hard not to be repulsed by their larval diets.

Centipedes are familiar to anyone who has overturned rocks and logs, sifted through leaf litter, or dug in the soil. Learn more about Missouri's members of class Chilopoda.

The Chinese mantis is a large, green and tan ambush predator. This nonnative insect is often called a “praying mantis” because the front legs resemble hands folded in prayer.