COLEOPTERA: BEETLES
Definition
- The front pair of wings are modified as protective tough elytra: covers for the membranous hind wings used for flight.
- Jaws are of the biting and chewing type (only the bigger beetles can give us a nip).
- The life cycle is complete:- egg, larva, pupa and adult.
- In size they range from walking dots, less than 1 mm long, to an impressive 75mm long, in the case of the Stag beetle.
What they do & where they live
- Between them, beetles eat a huge range of things:- live plants, dead plants, live and rotting wood, fungi, dead animals, dung, some are cleptoparasites (food stealers) and very many are predatory.
- They occur in all land habitats, and in shallow fresh and brackish water. There are even a few species in the marine inter-tidal zone.
Number of species
- About 3,900 species live in Britain, the third largest order of insects.
- Worldwide, there are about 300,000 described species , but there must be many more unnamed species, especially in the tropics.
It's amazing. It was once said that God must have been inordinately fond of beetles to have made so many species.
