Bugs

There are 80 bugs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the game decides which ones you can catch mostly by the clock on the wall. Butterflies fly during office hours. Stag beetles clock on at 5 PM. The two 10,000-Bell beetles do not appear until 11 PM. Our complete bug list gives every bug's hours, months and price, and when you sort that table by hours rather than by species the pattern is hard to miss: the later you stay up, the more Nook's Cranny pays.

This guide reads the list by shift, from the bugs that never sleep to the ones that keep you up past midnight, and points to our two dedicated pages, the everyday Miyama stag and the lucrative tarantula, as the two ends of that scale. The older bugs guide adds a column the list lacks: where each bug is found, from flowers and tree trunks to rocks, snowballs and the villagers themselves.

The shifts and what they pay

Around the clock: the ones you can catch at any hour

A surprising number of bugs ignore the clock entirely, and they are the bread and butter of the museum drive. The wasp is the standout: all day, all year, 2,500 Bells, and the reason five wasp nests a day appear on the Bells farming page. Behind it sit the rosalia batesi beetle and dung beetle at 3,000, the jewel beetle at 2,400, the saw stag at 2,000 and the tiger beetle at 1,500, then a long tail of cheap all-day catches, bagworm and walking leaf at 600, snail at 250, wharf roach at 200, ant at 80, fly at 60, and the cicada shell at 10. The Miyama stag belongs here too: on tree trunks at any hour in July and August up north or January and February down south, worth 1,000 Bells, and the page's advice is simply not to run at it.

Daylight: butterflies, mantises and the 4,000-Bell ceiling

Daytime is the busiest shift and the least lucrative. Nearly every butterfly flies between 4 AM and 7 PM, from the 160-Bell common and yellow butterflies through the peacock and Rajah Brooke's birdwing at 2,500 and the great purple emperor and agrias at 3,000 to the Queen Alexandra's birdwing at 4,000, the day's highest price and only between 8 AM and 4 PM. The 8 AM to 5 PM band holds the mantis and orchid mantis (430 and 2,400, both on flowers; the bugs guide notes the orchid mantis sits on white ones), the honeybee and ladybug at 200, and the summer cicadas from 250 to 500. Locusts and grasshoppers, the red dragonfly, the pondskater and the 800-Bell diving beetle round out the daylight roster. Nothing here cracks 4,000, which is the whole argument for setting an alarm.

Evening into morning: the 5 PM stags

At 5 PM the price list changes character. The emperor butterfly, 4,000 Bells, is the only butterfly on this shift, and the crickets and bell crickets start singing, but the money is on the tree trunks. From 5 PM to 8 AM in July and August (January and February in the south) the coconut and hardwood trees host the goliath, cyclommatus, horned atlas and horned elephant beetles at 8,000 each, the horned dynastid at 1,350, and the three most valuable bugs in the game, the golden stag, giraffe stag and horned hercules at 12,000 apiece. The list page's tip is to hold them for Flick, who pays double when he visits, and the Bug-Off page covers his contest. The walking stick and evening cicada keep odd hours of their own, splitting the dawn and dusk.

Night: 7 PM onward and the two 8,000-Bell spiders

From 7 PM the moths come out around lights (130 for the plain moth, 3,000 for the atlas moth), the firefly glows for a single month, the darner and 4,500-Bell banded dragonflies patrol from 8 PM, the giant water bug and man-faced stink bug take over the water and flowers, and the rainbow stag, 6,000 Bells, joins the trees until 8 AM. The tarantula is the shift's headline: 7 PM to 4 AM through the cold months, 8,000 Bells, and a catch that has to be done properly, holding A to creep forward, releasing when it rears its front legs, and running if it lunges, because a bite sends you home unconscious. The scorpion takes the same hours and price in the warm months. For volume, the page and our Tarantula Island page both point to Nook Miles Ticket islands cleared of every other spawn.

Deep night: what only appears after 11 PM

Three bugs wait until 11 PM. Two of them are worth 10,000 Bells, the scarab beetle and the giant stag, both on trees from 11 PM to 8 AM in the same two summer months as the other stags; the third is the 250-Bell pill bug, which hides under rocks until 4 AM and only comes out when you hit them with a shovel. The bugs guide adds that the centipede shares the rock trick, and the hermit crab and wharf roach are on the beach. A night that starts with the 5 PM stags and ends with a scarab at midnight covers every bug above 4,000 Bells in one sitting.

Catching and cashing in

The list page's basics apply on every shift: buy a net for 900 Bells from Timmy or craft one from a flimsy net and an iron nugget, ready it with A, approach from behind at a walk, and swing once in range. Catching every one of the 80 mails you the golden net recipe on our tools guide. The first of each species goes to Blathers at the museum, where the bug wing includes the butterfly house; everything after that is Bells, or double Bells when Flick is in town.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most expensive bug?

Three tie at 12,000 Bells: the golden stag, giraffe stag and horned hercules, all on trees from 5 PM to 8 AM in July and August in the north or January and February in the south.

When do tarantulas appear?

Between 7 PM and 4 AM from November to April in the north and May to October in the south. Scorpions replace them in the opposite months at the same price.

Where are fish and sea creatures covered?

Fish are on our fish guide and diving catches on the sea creatures list, both reachable from the Animal Crossing: New Horizons hub.