North American wheel bug
This assassin bug carries a spoked, wheel-shaped crest on its back and delivers a bite so painful that numbness can linger at the site for days.
| Where | Gardens, forest edges and shrubs |
|---|---|
| Size | 25 to 38 mm body length |
| When | April to November |
The North American wheel bug is a large, grey-brown true bug with a distinctive cog-like crest rising from its thorax, found on shrubs and trees where it ambushes caterpillars and other insects.
It grips prey with strong front legs and injects saliva through a curved beak to subdue it, and the same beak delivers an unusually painful bite if the insect is handled or trapped against skin.
Traits
Habitat
Garden
Colour
Grey, Brown
Active
Day
To people
Take care
A useful predator of garden pests, but its bite is unusually painful and can take weeks to heal, so it should never be handled.
Activity through the year
Often confused with
Similar hunting habits and a comparably slender body, but it lacks the wheel bug's cog-shaped crest and instead has sticky hairs on its front legs for trapping prey.
Questions
Is the North American wheel bug dangerous to people?
Take care. A useful predator of garden pests, but its bite is unusually painful and can take weeks to heal, so it should never be handled.
When can you see the North American wheel bug?
The North American wheel bug can be seen from April to November, by day.
Plate retouched from a museum specimen photo by Davidson College, CC0, GBIF Licence
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True bugs›Assassin bugs›Arilus
Last updated 2026-09-26. Every entry is checked against published sources.