Coleoptera (beetles)

Over 400 000 species described to date (20 000 in Europe, 4000 in UK), and the back rooms of museums are full of more new species. That's more than all the vascular plants, and six times the number of vertebrates. So if you want to be remembered fund taxonomy and have a beetle named after you!
They are found in every habitat except salt water and polar ice caps.
The order Coleoptera is divided into around 170 different families.
They are holometabolous, i.e. they undergo complete metamorphosis with a distinct larval, pupal and adult stage. With the principal feeding as a larva, and the sexually mature stage as an adult. So every adult beetle you see was once an egg, a larva, a pupa, and finally the adult beetle.
Adults range in length from 0.25 - 200.00 mm, and up to 75.00 mm in width.
Most have two pairs of wings, with the front pair (elytra) forming a hard, protective covering over the rear membranous flight wings.
They have biting mouthparts.
Glowworms are not worms, but beetles belonging to the family Lampyridae.
When attacked or handled roughly they can reflex bleed a brown fluid which tastes bad, causing some predators to drop them.
The first beetles were around in the Permian.

Beetle body parts

1. antenna 2. maxillary palp 3. labial palp 4. mandible 5. compound eye 6. labrum 7. clypeus
8. pronotum 9. elytron 10. scutellum 11. femur 12. tibia 13. tarsus 14. labium 15. mentum
16 - 21 abdominal sternites, 21 aka anal sternite

"If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles." —J.B.S. Haldane, 1951.

Tree fogging experiments in a Panama rainforest found the the number of beetle species in 1 hectare exceeded 41,000 (Terry Erwin, 1982, and Coleopterist's Bulletin).

Now this study was performed one time, and counted only those beetles that were caught falling into umberella-like traps under the trees that were fogged with insecticide. It did not count those that landed on the ground, got caught in branches or leaves, etc. Nor did it count ground, underground or boring beetles. Nor did it count beetle larvae. So, all this proves is that there is a vast number of beetle species.

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