8

What are beetles?

WHAT ARE BEETLES?

more wonders on every field and every

copse than the ordinary traveler sees who

goes round the world and they will perhaps

consider you crazy, yet you will have told

them only the truth.”

One hopes that awareness of beetles and their

vast diversity, myriad forms and functions, and

ecological importance is greater today than

150 years ago, when Wallace wrote these lines—

although confusion with cockroaches continues!

So what is a beetle? It is an insect of the order

Coleoptera. As an insect, the adult body is divided

into three parts: head, thorax, and

abdomen, and it has six legs. Coleoptera

are defined by the front pair of wings

modified into elytra, which protect the

abdomen and the folded flight wings.

Alfred Russel Wallace, the famous evolutionary

biologist, biogeographer, and coleopterist,

reflected on the question, “What are beetles?”

“It is a melancholy fact that many of our

fellow creatures do not know what is a beetle!

They think cockroaches are beetles! Tell them

that beetles are more numerous, more varied,

and even more beautiful than the birds or

beasts or fishes that inhabit the earth and they

will hardly believe you; tell them that he who

does not know something about beetles misses

a never failing source of pleasure and

occupation and is ignorant of one of the most

important groups of animals inhabiting the

earth, and they will think you are joking;

tell them further that he who has never

observed and studied beetles passes over

left | Golofa porteri

(Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae)

The male of this South

American rhinoceros beetle

has some of the most

extreme horns of any

insect, but despite this

is able to fly.