Insects Picker

Insects Picker

Free Random Insect Picker

Search the meadow

Who is in the meadow?

Tap bugs to add or remove them from the meadow (up to 12).

You are crouched in the long grass with a macro lens, and something is hiding in every tuft. Press Take the Shot and the lens creeps across the meadow — bugs dart under the blades as you pass — until the reticle locks on, the grass snaps into focus and the shutter fires. The photo develops to show exactly what you found. Choose who is in the meadow, add your own, and let the lens decide.

  • Teachers & classrooms
  • Budding entomologists
  • Drawing & projects
Get down in the grass

Search the meadow to pick a random minibeast

There are more insects alive right now than any other animal on Earth — over a million named species — so “pick a bug” is a big ask. The Insects Picker hands the job to a macro lens. Your minibeasts hide among the grass tufts, and when you press Take the Shot the lens creeps across the meadow — bugs dart under the blades as you pass — until the reticle locks on, the grass snaps sharp and the shutter fires. A photo slides up and develops to show what you found. The winner is chosen fairly before the camera moves, so the hunt is pure suspense over a genuinely random result.

Fill the meadow

The lens can only photograph what's out there. Tap bugs to add or remove them, and type in anything missing — a snail, a woodlouse, whatever your class found under a log. Keep the meadow to minibeasts you'd be happy to get, and whatever turns up is a good result.

1
Fill

Choose which bugs are hiding in the meadow.

2
Sweep

Press Take the Shot and follow the lens across the grass.

3
Snap

Focus locks, the shutter fires, and your photo develops.

Know your minibeasts

If the lens catches something you don't know much about, here's a head start:

MinibeastWhere to find itWorth knowing
ButterflyFlowers & sunny meadowsTastes with its feet, and started life as a caterpillar
LadybugLeaves & garden plantsA single one can eat thousands of aphids in its lifetime
BeeAnywhere with flowersDances to tell the hive exactly where to find nectar
AntUnderground coloniesCan lift around fifty times its own body weight
DragonflyPonds & streamsFlies backwards and hovers — the finest flyer of all insects
FireflyWarm summer nightsMakes its own cold light to signal to other fireflies
Praying MantisShrubs & long grassSits motionless, then strikes faster than you can blink
CicadaTrees in warm placesSome species wait seventeen years underground before emerging

Ways to use it

  • Bug-hunt topic work. Give every child a different minibeast to research — no duplicates, no arguments.
  • Habitat lessons. Photograph one, then work out where it lives and what it eats.
  • Drawing challenges. One shot equals one bug to draw — try it as a timed sketch.
  • Food-chain games. Take two photos and decide which would eat which, and why.
  • Nature walks. Let the camera choose which minibeast to hunt for outside.
  • Guess the animal. Shoot in secret and give clues until someone names it.

A fair shot every time

No tuft of grass is luckier than another. The winner is chosen with your browser's cryptographic random generator — the same kind of randomness used for security — before the camera moves, the lens can reach every tuft in the meadow, and the bugs swap hiding places between shots. The sweep, the focus pull and the developing photo are showmanship; the pick is genuinely unbiased.

More animal pickers

Once you've bagged one, keep exploring:

Frequently asked questions

The winning bug is picked first with your browser’s cryptographic random generator — before the camera moves at all — and the sweep is then choreographed to end on it. Every bug has exactly the same chance; the creeping and focusing are just the fun part.

Yes. The camera pans both across and down to centre any tuft in the meadow, and the bugs swap hiding places between shots, so no patch of grass is luckier than another.

Yes. Type any sea creature into the “Add your own sea creature” box — a nautilus, a sea otter, a giant squid — and it joins the reef.

Up to twelve at a time, each with its own tuft to hide in. Toggle bugs on and off in the grid to build the meadow you want.

Because hunting minibeasts is exactly how you find them for real. Creeping the lens through the grass, locking focus and watching a photo develop is a far better reveal for kids than a flat wheel — and the result is just as random.

Completely free, with no signup. It runs entirely in your browser.

For handing out minibeasts for a bug-hunt topic, choosing which insect to study next, running habitat and life-cycle lessons, or as a quick reward where each child takes a turn behind the camera.

Yes. The viewfinder scales to your screen and the bug chooser opens in a side panel, so it works on phones, tablets, desktops and classroom whiteboards.