The insect-like aliens from Yuggoth in “The Whisperer in Darkness” are the Mi-Go. Lovecraft portrays them as extraterrestrial, fungus-based beings whose bodies resemble winged, crustacean-like creatures rather than conventional insects.
The Mi-Go first appear by implication in reports of strange beings associated with Vermont’s remote hills. The narrator, Albert Wilmarth, investigates letters from Henry Akeley, who claims that the creatures are operating on Earth and communicating with human collaborators. Their true nature becomes increasingly difficult to separate from rumor, disguise, and psychological manipulation.
Yuggoth is the Mi-Go’s name for Pluto, although the story’s cosmic geography is deliberately fantastic. They possess advanced surgical and mechanical knowledge, including the ability to remove a human brain and preserve it in a metal cylinder. This procedure allows a person’s consciousness to travel while the body remains behind.
Readers sometimes confuse the Mi-Go with the Elder Things, who are central to “At the Mountains of Madness,” or with the Great Race of Yith, who exchange minds across time. Those are separate Mythos species. The name Mi-Go is also linked to “migou,” a Tibetan term associated with the yeti.