Insects outnumber nearly every other animal group on the planet, and a surprising cast of predators has built entire lifestyles around hunting them down. Animals that eat insects range from familiar backyard visitors like hedgehogs to specialists most people have never heard of, including solenodons, golden moles, and archerfish that spit jets of water to knock prey out of the air.
According to Wikipedia, an insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects, a definition broad enough to cover mammals, fish, and even a wolf on a lean night.
This list moves through twelve very different insect eaters, from bats that hunt by sound to tenrecs that curl into spiky balls when threatened. Each one has evolved its own toolkit, whether that means echolocation, a sticky tongue, or a snout built like a shovel, for finding and catching insects that most other animals overlook.
1. Brown bats
Brown bats, including the widespread big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), hunt after dark using echolocation, sending out rapid clicks and reading the returning echoes to track flying insects in total darkness. This sonar-like system lets them intercept fast, erratic fliers that would be nearly impossible to catch by sight alone.
Their diet leans heavily on flying and crawling pests. According to Pointe Pest Control, favorite bugs for bats include beetles, mosquitoes, fruit flies, moths, gnats, crickets, and locusts. A single colony can work through enormous numbers of these insects over the course of a summer, which is part of why bats are often welcomed near farms and gardens rather than feared.
Pro Tip: A bat box mounted high on a south-facing wall can attract brown bats to a garden, giving natural pest control a place to roost without inviting them into the house itself.
2. Wolves
Wolves (Canis lupus) are built to hunt large hoofed mammals such as deer and elk, so insects rarely make up a meaningful part of their diet. Even so, opportunistic feeding is part of what keeps wolves alive when bigger prey is scarce.
Research summarized by A-Z Animals notes that wolves have been known to eat insects in dire times, alongside grubs, berries, and other fallback foods. This flexibility highlights something true of many predators on this list: strict insect-eating is often a specialization, not the only option available to a species.
3. Archerfish
Archerfish are among the few insect eaters that never leave the water to catch their prey. Instead, they aim a precise jet of water from their mouths at insects resting on branches or leaves above the surface, knocking them down within easy reach.
A-Z Animals explains that the archerfish uses a well-aimed stream of water to knock an insect into its pool. According to Animals Window, this skill is more calculated than it looks, since the fish calculates the weight of a target insect before adjusting how hard to spit. That kind of adjustment lets a young archerfish fine-tune its aim as it grows and its targets change size.
4. Hedgehogs
Hedgehogs are some of the most recognizable garden insect eaters in Europe, where the Western European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) forages through leaf litter and undergrowth each night. Their spiny coats double as armor against predators while they root around for prey close to the ground.
Animals Window lists hedgehogs among the classic backyard hunters, noting that common garden insect-eaters include hedgehogs, toads, ground beetles, robins, and spiders. A hedgehog’s diet also stretches to slugs, worms, and the occasional bird egg, but beetles and caterpillars remain reliable staples through the warmer months.
5. Armadillos
Armadillos are digging specialists that use strong claws to tear into soil and rotting logs in search of ants, termites, and grubs. Their armor-plated bodies set them apart from almost every other mammal on this list.
Taxonomically, armadillos sit alongside sloths and anteaters. As ScienceDirect notes, Xenarthra includes sloths, armadillos, and anteaters. According to AnimalWised, a memorable armadillo fun fact is that an armadillo’s entire body is covered in bony plates, giving it protection while it digs through insect-rich ground that would leave softer-bodied animals exposed.
6. Star-nosed moles
The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) is one of the strangest-looking insect eaters in North America, ringed at the nose with a fleshy crown of tentacle-like appendages used to feel out prey underground and underwater. AnimalWised confirms the species by its scientific name, the star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata), in its rundown of notable insect-eating animals.
This mole spends most of its life in wet soil and shallow water, using its star to detect worms, insect larvae, and small invertebrates by touch alone since its eyesight is extremely poor. Its hunting reflexes are considered among the fastest of any mammal, letting it identify and swallow prey items almost as soon as its nose brushes against them.
7. Elephant shrews
Elephant shrews, also called sengis, get their name from a long, flexible snout that looks a little like a miniature trunk. One well-known species is the golden-rumped elephant shrew (Rhynchocyon chrysopygus), found along the coast of Kenya.
According to Wikipedia’s entry on the Little Five, an elephant shrew is a tiny insect eating mammal that gets its name from its elongated red snout to track down prey and uses its tongue to flick small insects, leaves, seeds, and small fruits into its mouth. Elephant shrews are surprisingly fast on their feet, using quick bursts of speed to escape predators between bouts of foraging.
8. Golden moles
Golden moles look like true moles at first glance, but they belong to a completely separate branch of the mammal family tree native to Africa. The Cape golden mole (Chrysochloris asiatica) is a well-studied example, spending almost its entire life burrowing through sandy soil in search of insects, worms, and other invertebrates.
BioDB explains that golden moles are not true moles at all but share convergent evolutionary traits such as a compact, velvety fur-covered body adapted for a life spent burrowing underground. Their coats have an unusual iridescent quality, and as BioDB notes, their golden sheen comes from the iridescence of their fur, which can glint beautifully under the right light, a characteristic that is unique among mammals.
Key Insight: Golden moles and true moles look almost identical despite evolving on separate continents, a pattern scientists call convergent evolution, where unrelated animals develop similar traits to solve the same problem: digging efficiently through soil to reach insect prey.
9. True moles
True moles belong to the family Talpidae and include familiar species like the European mole (Talpa europaea), which tunnels through lawns and fields in search of earthworms, grubs, and insect larvae. Their paddle-shaped front paws are built for pushing soil aside at speed.
Not every mole stays underground. Animal Diversity Web notes that some aquatic species of moles are found near fresh water, or brackish and somewhat salty water, including desmans that swim with webbed feet. Moles also tend to be short-lived; the same source reports that while there are reports of moles living to seven years in captivity, on average moles live to about two years in the wild.
10. True shrews
True shrews make up the family Soricidae, one of the largest mammal families on Earth, and include species such as the common shrew (Sorex araneus). Despite their mouse-like appearance, shrews are closer relatives of moles and hedgehogs than of any rodent.
As Tetrapod Zoology puts it, shrews are small, mostly insectivorous mammals closely related to moles and hedgehogs and united with them in Eulipotyphla. The family’s diversity is remarkable, since shrews are a large family, containing over 440 species. Their tiny bodies burn energy so quickly that many shrews need to eat every few hours just to survive.
11. Solenodons
Solenodons are rare, rat-sized mammals found only on a couple of Caribbean islands, and they are among the very few mammals known to deliver venom through a bite. Their long, flexible snouts probe through leaf litter and soil for insects, worms, and other small animals.
Size varies noticeably between species. Animal Diversity Web reports that Cuban solenodons are the largest species in this order, and can be up to 600 mm long. Like other insect-hunting mammals on this list, solenodons share a common toolkit for the job; the Wildlife Journal Junior from NH PBS notes that these animals generally have long, pointed snouts, lots of sharp teeth, small ears, and small eyes, features well suited to hunting by smell and touch rather than sight.
Important Note: Solenodon venom is delivered through grooved lower incisors and is potent enough to subdue insects and small vertebrates. It is not considered a medical threat to humans in the way that venomous snakebites are, but any wild animal bite should still be treated with appropriate care.
12. Tenrecs
Tenrecs are a family of small mammals found mainly in Madagascar, where they have evolved into an unusually wide range of body forms. According to Encyclopedia.com, the Tenrecidae have undergone adaptive radiation to produce forms resembling shrews, moles, and hedgehogs, and Potamogale, the otter shrew, is an aquatic form closely resembling true otters. The same source notes the family’s diversity, with 11 genera and 33 species currently recognized.
One well-known example is the lesser hedgehog tenrec (Echinops telfairi), which, like several relatives, rolls into a spiky ball when threatened. BioDB describes tenrecs as primarily nocturnal, with a diet that is largely insectivorous, tenrecs and otter shrews voraciously consuming insects and other small invertebrates and playing a crucial role in the control of insect populations within their ecosystems. When danger appears, tenrecs roll into a ball and raise their spines to defend against predators, a defense strategy that mirrors hedgehogs despite the two families having evolved it independently on different continents.
From echolocating bats to spitting archerfish and spiny tenrecs, animals that eat insects have found an extraordinary range of solutions to the same basic problem: finding enough small, fast-moving prey to survive. Many of these species stay hidden from casual observation.
As ScienceDirect points out, insectivores are rarely used as exhibit animals because of their secretive nature, since most are nocturnal and the fossorial species spend most or all of their time underground. That secrecy is exactly why creatures like solenodons, golden moles, and star-nosed moles remain so unfamiliar, even though they are quietly doing the work of keeping insect populations in check wherever they burrow, swim, or fly.