Medical importance bugs
Every species in the Wild Files corpus where medical importance is a defining trait.
59 on file
Asian Giant Hornet
Slaughters whole bee colonies in hours. Wears a sting that breaks down flesh.
Common Bed Bug
Survives a year without feeding. Has been with humans for 3,500 years. Wants nothing to do with you — except your blood.
Human Botfly
Doesn't bite you. Hires the mosquito to deliver its eggs. Hatches under your skin.
Brazilian Wandering Spider
World's most venomous spider. Doesn't build webs — wanders. Found in shoes, banana shipments.
Brown Recluse
America's most-feared bite. Also America's most-misdiagnosed bite.
Deathstalker Scorpion
Deadliest scorpion on Earth. Venom: $39M per gallon. Used to light up brain tumors.
Desert Locust
Solitary green bug, until crowded. Then it turns yellow, swarms, and darkens the sky.
African Driver Ant
22 million workers per colony. Raid in columns kilometers long. Clean a house in hours.
Yellow Fever Mosquito
Deadliest animal in human history. Has killed more people than every war combined.
Spotted Lanternfly
The bug your state told you to step on. Invasive, destructive, gorgeous, tasty.
Sydney Funnel-Web Spider
Sydney's only deadly spider. Venom kills humans but barely affects dogs. Antivenom has stopped every death since 1981.
Western Black Widow
Red hourglass on a black mirror. Venom 15× rattlesnake by weight. Doesn't always eat the male.
Common Yellowjacket
Stings you. Stings you again. Stings you a third time. Doesn't die.
Common Fruit Fly
The most-studied animal in scientific history. Six Nobel Prizes ride on her shoulders.
Tsetse Fly
Reshaped the map of Africa. Gives birth to single larvae. Carries sleeping sickness.
Queen Alexandra's Birdwing
Largest butterfly on Earth — 28 cm. The first specimen was shot down with a shotgun.
Black-Legged (Deer) Tick
Cements herself to your skin for 3 days. Carries Lyme disease. Range expanding north 50 km a decade.
German Cockroach
World's most damaging cockroach. Now resistant to every major pesticide class simultaneously.
Varroa Mite
1.6 mm parasite. Single greatest threat to global honey bees. Costs beekeepers $2B a year.
Kissing Bug
Bites your face at night. Defecates on the wound. Carries Chagas disease — kills 12,000 a year.
Sheep Tick (Castor Bean Tick)
Primary European LYME DISEASE vector. Also vectors tick-borne ENCEPHALITIS VIRUS. 65K+ Lyme cases/year in Europe.
Two-Striped Walking Stick
SPRAYS toxic chemical defense up to 40 cm — intensely irritating to vertebrate eyes. 'Devil rider' walking stick.
Hide Beetle
Forensic entomology bug — arrival time on corpses estimates time-of-death. Used by museums to clean skeletons.
Brown-Tail Moth
Caterpillar covered in URTICATING HAIRS that cause severe rash and respiratory irritation in humans.
Northern Black Widow
Eastern NA black widow. 'Broken' RED HOURGLASS marking. Potent neurotoxic venom (alpha-latrotoxin).
American Dog Tick
Major NA vector of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Also tick paralysis. Wood-tick of NA hiking trails.
Lone Star Tick
Bite makes you ALLERGIC TO MAMMALIAN MEAT. Alpha-gal syndrome — discovered 2009.
Indian Red Scorpion
World's most lethal scorpion. Pre-treatment childhood mortality 30-40%. Cardiac autonomic storm.
Yellow Sac Spider
Most common indoor spider in NA. Cause of most 'spider bite' reports. CHEWS through fuel-system plastic.
Face Fly
Cattle face-feeder. Vector of cattle pinkeye. Overwinters in rural attics by the thousands.
Green Bottle Fly
FDA-approved for medical maggot therapy. Eats dead tissue, kills MRSA, stimulates healing.
Mediterranean Recluse
Most invasive recluse spider on Earth. Sphingomyelinase D venom causes necrotic skin lesions.
Horse Bot Fly
Lays eggs on horse's front legs. Horse licks. Larvae develop in mouth, then attach to stomach wall for 10 months.
Chigoe Flea (Jigger)
Female burrows INTO your foot. Stays embedded 4-6 weeks. Affects 20M+ people worldwide.
Dark-Winged Fungus Gnat
The houseplant pest. NZ cousin glows in caves to attract prey. Major greenhouse vector.
Asp Caterpillar (Southern Flannel Moth)
Looks like a piece of cotton. Sting reportedly the most painful in North America. Pet your kid.
Asian Tiger Mosquito
Globally invasive via the used-tire trade. Vectors dengue, Zika, chikungunya into temperate climates.
Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula
Most popular pet tarantula in the world. Gentle. Goes months without food. Venom yields cardiac drug candidate.
Blue Bottle Fly
Forensic entomology centerpiece. Larvae used as medical maggot therapy. Vomits to digest food.
Body Louse
Vector of typhus that killed 30M+. Dated origin of human clothing. Lives only in the seams of your clothes.
Asian Needle Ant
Painful sting comparable to a wasp. Anaphylaxis documented. Displacing native ants in eastern US.
European Fire Ant
Invasive in Metro Vancouver since 2010s. Sharp burning sting. Excludes native ants from infested soil.
Oriental Rat Flea
Vector of bubonic plague. Killed 200+ MILLION humans across history. Most consequential insect ever.
Squash Bug
Dominant pest of squash and pumpkins. Vector of cucurbit yellow vine disease.
Cat Flea
Most common flea worldwide. Jumps 100× her body length at 100g. Dominant flea on cats, dogs, humans.
Yellow Fever Mosquito
Vector of yellow fever, dengue, Zika, chikungunya. Day biter. Breeds in a bottle cap of water.
Anopheles Mosquito (Malaria Vector)
Sole vector of human malaria. Kills 600,000 a year. Most deadly animal on Earth, by impact.
Black Fly (Buffalo Gnat)
Bites livestock and humans in clouds. African subgroup vectors river blindness. Public-health success story.
Spanish Fly (Blister Beetle)
Source of the cantharidin 'aphrodisiac.' Hypermetamorphic life cycle. Hitchhikes on bees to their nests.
Fat-Tailed Scorpion
Latin name means 'man-killer.' Hundreds of deaths per year across North Africa and the Middle East.
Atlantic Horseshoe Crab
450 million years old, blue-blooded living fossil, used to test every vaccine on Earth for endotoxins.
Sand Fly
Tiny enough to slip through mosquito netting. Vector of leishmaniasis. Affects 12 million people.
Snow Flea
Tiny springtail active on snow. Antifreeze protein keeps her alive at -20°C. Used in medical cryopreservation.
Arizona Bark Scorpion
Only deadly US scorpion. Glows blue-green under UV light. Lurks under bark and inside shoes.
Horse Fly
Slices the skin with scissor-mandibles. Eyes glow rainbow-iridescent. Most painful fly bite on Earth.
House Fly
Vomits on your food to dissolve it. Carries 100+ pathogens. Sees movement 10x faster than you do.
Chigger (Harvest Mite)
Larva liquefies your skin and drinks it through a tube. The 'burrow into the skin' myth is false.
House Dust Mite
0.3 mm. 10 million in your mattress. Eats your dead skin. Major asthma trigger worldwide.
Pharaoh Ant
2 mm. Invades hospitals. Spray her and she SPLITS the colony. Queens by the dozen.