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Entomophobia

Fear of insects and bugs

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated August 16, 2026

Entomophobia, sometimes known as insectophobia, is a specific phobia characterized by an excessive or unrealistic fear (disgust) of one or more classes of insect, and classified as a phobia by the DSM-5. More specific cases include katsaridaphobia (fear of cockroaches), melissophobia (fear of bees), spheksophobia (fear of wasps), myrmecophobia (fear of ants), and lepidopterophobia (fear of moths and butterflies). One book claims 6% of all US inhabitants have this phobia.

Entomophobia may develop after the person has had a traumatic experience with the insect(s). It may develop early or later in life and is quite common among animal phobias. Typically, one has a fear of one specific type of insect. However, in some cases, this fear may encompass all organisms of the phylum Arthropoda. Entomophobia leads to behavioral changes: the person with entomophobia will avoid situations where they may encounter a specific type of insect. Cognitive behavioral therapy is considered an effective treatment.

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This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Entomophobia”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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Related topics

Zoophobia

Zoophobia, or animal phobia, is the irrational fear or aversion towards non-human animals. Zoophobia is the general negative reaction to animals, but it is usually divided into many subgroups, each being of a specific type of zoophobia.

Arachnophobia

Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders and other arachnids, such as scorpions and ticks. Arachnophobia is a specific phobia and is one of the most common described anxiety disorders, despite the fact that most arachnids pose little threat to humans.

List of phobias

The English suffixes -phobia, -phobic, -phobe occur in technical usage in psychiatry to construct words that describe irrational, abnormal, unwarranted, persistent, or disabling fear as a mental disorder (e.g., agoraphobia), in chemistry to describe chemical aversions (e.g., hydrophobic), in biology to describe organisms that dislike certain conditions (e.g., acidophobia), and in medicine to describe hypersensitivity to a stimulus, usually sensory (e.g., photophobia). In common usage, they also form words that describe dislike or hatred of a particular thing or subject (e.g., homophobia).