Coleoptera

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See Coleoptera in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Coleoptera, beetles. This is the single largest and most successful clade within Metazoa, with approximately 350,000 species--a figure which continues to grow on a nearly daily rate. Beetles represent 1/4 of all animal taxa, and are so prolific they prompted J.B.S. Haldane to make his now famous quip that God must have an "inordinate fondness for beetles." Coleopterans have invaded nearly every imaginable non-marine environment, from the high canopy of rainforests, to fresh and brackish water. Beetles are defined by the presence of elytra, which are forewings highly modified into hardened, protective plates, and antennae of variable morphology, but always composed of 10-11 segments. Beetles display tremendous morphological diversity, and range in size from 130mm long tropical forms, to minute taxa less than a millimeter in length. Beetles occupy virtually all available ecological niches, from carnivorous and parasitic forms (i.e., tiger and highwayman beetles) to wood-boring and leaf-eating forms (jewel and tortoise beetles) to coprophagic forms (i.e., scarabs).