You’re staring at a screen, scrolling through photos of potato bugs, and you're probably feeling a mix of confusion and mild disgust. It happens to everyone. You think you know what a potato bug looks like until you see three different pictures that look absolutely nothing alike. One is a striped beetle. Another is a giant, alien-looking thing with a human-like face on its back. The third is just a tiny pill bug from under your porch.
Honestly, the term "potato bug" is one of the biggest mess-ups in common biological naming. It’s a mess. People use it for at least three distinct creatures, and if you’re trying to identify a pest in your garden or a weird crawler in your basement, getting the wrong photo can lead to some pretty annoying mistakes.
The Jerusalem Cricket: That Weird Thing from Your Nightmares
When most people in the Western U.S. search for photos of potato bugs, they are usually looking for the Jerusalem Cricket. These things are massive. They aren't actually crickets, and they definitely aren't from Jerusalem.
Look at a high-res photo of one. You’ll notice the head is disproportionately large, bald, and sort of amber-colored. It’s why people in Mexico call them niña de la tierra or "child of the earth." There is something eerily humanoid about that face. If you see a photo of a bug that looks like a giant, wingless wasp mixed with a nightmare, that’s your culprit. They have these thick, black-banded abdomens that look like they’re bursting.
They don't have venom. That’s a huge misconception. But they can bite. Hard. If you’re looking at photos of potato bugs to see if they’re dangerous, just know that while they look like they’re from a sci-fi flick, they mostly just want to eat decaying organic matter and the occasional smaller insect. They use those massive mandibles to hiss by rubbing their legs against their bodies. It's a sound you don't forget.
The Colorado Potato Beetle: The Real Garden Villain
Now, if you’re a gardener in the Midwest or East Coast, your photos of potato bugs look entirely different. You’re likely dealing with Leptinotarsa decemlineata. This is the "true" potato bug in an agricultural sense.
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Identifying the Stripes
These beetles are actually kind of pretty if they weren't so destructive. They have ten black stripes running down their yellow-orange wing covers. Look closely at a macro photo; the stripes are perfectly parallel, almost like someone painted them on with a fine-tipped brush.
They are tiny compared to the Jerusalem Cricket, usually about the size of a fingernail. But they are persistent. They’ve evolved to resist almost every pesticide humans have thrown at them. If your photo shows a bunch of orange, soft-bodied larvae with black dots on the sides huddled on the underside of a leaf, you’ve found the kids. They’ll strip a potato plant to the veins in forty-eight hours flat.
The Pill Bug Confusion
Then there’s the third group. Some people—mostly in the Northeast or UK—call woodlice or pill bugs "potato bugs." These aren't even insects. They're terrestrial crustaceans.
If your photos of potato bugs show a grey, armored little guy that rolls into a perfect ball when you touch it, you’re looking at an Isopod. They love damp basements and rotting wood. They are harmless. In fact, they’re actually helpful because they heavy-metal detox the soil. Comparing a photo of a pill bug to a Jerusalem Cricket is like comparing a goldfish to a shark. They aren't even in the same ballpark.
Why the Photos Vary So Much
The internet is bad at labeling things. You'll find stock photo sites where a "potato bug" tag is applied to everything from a cicada killer to a common beetle.
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It’s about regional slang. Entomology is precise, but humans are not. In the 1800s, as settlers moved across the US, they just started naming things based on what they were eating. "Hey, that thing is eating my potatoes. It's a potato bug." It didn't matter if it was a beetle in Kansas or a cricket in California.
- Jerusalem Crickets (Stenopelmatus) are subterranean.
- Colorado Potato Beetles (Leptinotarsa) are foliage-dwellers.
- Pill Bugs (Armadillidiidae) are moisture-seekers.
The Bite Factor
Can they hurt you? It’s the number one question people ask when looking at these pictures. The beetle? No. The pill bug? Absolutely not. The Jerusalem Cricket? Yeah, it can nip. It’s not a medical emergency, but it’ll sting for a bit. They have no stingers, despite the "wasp" look they sometimes have in photos.
Getting Rid of Them Based on the Image
Identification matters because the solution for one will fail for the others. You can't use beetle traps for a Jerusalem Cricket.
If your photos of potato bugs match the striped beetle, you need to look into Neem oil or, honestly, just hand-picking them off the plants. They’re slow. You can drop them into a bucket of soapy water. If you see the "nightmare cricket" in your house, just sweep it outside. They are actually great for the soil because they aerate it while they tunnel. They aren't infesting your home; they just took a wrong turn at the foundation.
Fact-Checking the "Face" Myth
There's an old urban legend that potato bugs (the Jerusalem kind) have a human face because they are cursed or some such nonsense. If you look at a high-resolution macro photo, you can see where the myth comes from. The way the plates on their head meet creates a "nose" and "mouth" shape. It’s just pareidolia—our brains trying to find faces in random patterns.
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Next Steps for Identification
First, go back to your photos of potato bugs and check the legs. Six legs? It’s an insect. More than six? It’s an isopod (pill bug).
Second, check the "armor." Is it a hard shell with stripes, or a fleshy, segmented body?
Third, look at the environment. If you found it under a rock in the desert, it’s a Jerusalem Cricket. If it’s on your tomato plants, it’s the beetle.
Once you’ve nailed the ID, stop searching for the generic term. Use the scientific name. You’ll get way better results and fewer nightmares. If it's the beetle, check the undersides of your leaves for bright orange egg clusters today. Scraping those off now will save you a massive headache next week. If it's the cricket, just seal up the gaps under your doors. They’re just looking for a cool place to hang out.