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Pest Library

Look up common household pests. How to identify them, the signs of an infestation, and when it's time to call a pro.

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Culex Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes

The West Nile virus mosquito. It breeds in stagnant, often dirty water rather than the clean containers Aedes wants.
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Deer Mouse

Rodents

It looks harmless next to a house mouse, and that is the problem. This is the species that carries hantavirus.
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DeKay's Brownsnake

Snakes - Non-Venomous

One of the smallest and most common snakes in its range, usually turned up under a board or a flowerpot.
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Diamondback Watersnake

Snakes - Non-Venomous

The harmless snake most often mistaken for a cottonmouth. Heavy, dark and harmless, not a cottonmouth.
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Eastern Chipmunk

Rodents

It does not chew into walls or nest in attics. Scratching overhead at night is something else.
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Eastern Gartersnake

Snakes - Non-Venomous

The striped snake in the flower bed, and the honest answer to whether it is dangerous is simply no.
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Eastern Gray Squirrel

Rodents

Squirrels are cavity dwellers. When they cannot find a hollow tree they take an attic, usually in late summer.
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Eastern Mole

Furbearers

The animal behind most tunneling blamed on gophers. A mole is not a rodent and eats no plants.
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Eastern Racer

Snakes - Non-Venomous

The fast, plain-colored snake that crosses a driveway in daylight and is gone before you finish reacting.
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Eastern Ratsnake

Snakes - Non-Venomous

The one snake that is genuinely working for you. Florida Museum of Natural History calls it extremely beneficial.
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Eastern Subterranean Termites

Termites

Almost every termite page on the internet quotes the same annual damage figure. That figure traces to no primary source, not even in the university extension publications that print it. The best-sourced estimate is a 2012 review in Annual Review of Entomology by Rust and Su, which put the worldwide cost of termite control and repair near $40 billion a year, roughly half of that in the United States, with subterranean termites responsible for about 80 percent of it. That number was built backward from termiticide sales, multiplied by a repair-to-control ratio borrowed from Formosan termite work in New Orleans. Nobody has actually measured it. Treat it as an order of magnitude, not a measurement, and be skeptical of anyone who quotes you a damage total to the dollar.
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European Starling

Birds

The bird in the dryer vent, and the flock of ten thousand over a feedlot in December. Same species, both problems.
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Evening Bat

Bats

White-nose syndrome reshaped which bat is in your attic. In much of the South this is now the one you find.
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Feral Swine

Furbearers

Feral hog, wild boar and razorback are all the same animal. States treat it as an emergency, not a nuisance.
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Fire Ants

Ants

A stinging ant whose mound has no opening. They come and go through tunnels that surface somewhere else.
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Fleas

Fleas

The fleas on the pet are the small end of it. Most of an infestation is eggs and larvae in the carpet.
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Fox Squirrel

Rodents

The biggest tree squirrel in North America, and across the Midwest and South Central it is the one in your attic.
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German Cockroaches

Cockroaches

One egg case releases up to 40 nymphs, and a single mated female can put thousands of offspring into a building in under a year. This is the one cockroach that does not live outdoors at all, so if it is inside, it is breeding inside.
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Gray Fox

Furbearers

One of four terrestrial rabies vector species recognized nationally, alongside raccoons, skunks and bats.
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Green Anole

Amphibians/Reptiles

The green anole causes no damage and no health risk, and people still call about it.
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Groundhog

Furbearers

Groundhog, woodchuck and whistlepig are one animal. The whistle is a real alarm call you can learn by ear.
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House Mouse

Rodents

It fits through a quarter-inch gap, nests within 30 feet of its food, and has five to ten litters a year.
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House Sparrow

Birds

One of only three US birds with no Migratory Bird Treaty Act protection, alongside the starling and the rock pigeon.
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Little Brown Bat

Bats

For most of a century this was the default answer to what is in the attic. Across the Great Lakes it no longer is.
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