Insects of Borneo

A free field guide to Borneo's insects — 349 species of true bugs, ants, bees and wasps, grasshoppers and katydids, beetles, stick insects and mantids. Each with photographs and identification notes. Nothing to buy and nothing to sign up for.

What Borneo's insect list looks like

Borneo's insect fauna is the largest and least completely known group of animals on the island by a wide margin. This guide brings together the orders visitors most often photograph and ask about that don't yet have a large enough following to warrant their own page: lantern bugs and true bugs (Hemiptera), ants, bees and wasps (Hymenoptera), grasshoppers and katydids (Orthoptera), beetles (Coleoptera), and stick insects and mantids (Phasmida and Mantodea).

Three of the biggest and most-searched-for insect groups have outgrown this page and now have dedicated guides of their own: moths (1,250 species), butterflies (667 species), and dragonflies and damselflies (376 species).

Use the tabs below to jump between the groups covered here.

Where to find them

Most groups here are best found on a slow night walk with a torch — mantids, stick insects and lantern bugs are all far easier to spot after dark. Danum Valley, Sepilok and the Kinabatangan river forests in Sabah are reliable sites for a wide cross-section of everything covered here.

All 349 species