Wildlife
Beetles form around 40% of all insects and are therefore the biggest insect group, with around 350,000 species in total. All beetles start life as grubs and then form a pupa and metamorphose into their adult form. Most adult beetles can fly, although a few, such as glow-worms and weevils, have lost the ability.
Scientific name: Coleoptera
Rank: Order
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Beetle flight
Beetles can fly, but some are clumsy in the air.
Beetles can fly, but some are clumsy in the air.
Beetle invades
A beetle invades the honey ant nest
A beetle invades the honey ant nest. At first, it is attacked by ants but their jaws can't break its tough exterior. Soon, it is accepted by the colony - maybe because it starts to smell like the ants it lives with. Once it is accepted by the ants and left alone, it starts to feed on the ant larvae.
Wicken's wild saviours
Beetles and saw sedge have saved Wicken Fen for posterity.
Beetles and saw sedge have saved Wicken Fen for posterity.
The Murdered Beetle – Museum of Life
Strange holes found on a beetle suggest he had been shot.
Jimmy Doherty and the team go behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum to enter the extraordinary world of insects, exploring the butterfly collection.
Ladybirds
Ground beetles
Great diving beetle (species)
Fireflies
Sexton beetles (genus)
Giraffe weevil (species)
Dung beetlesLearn more about the other animals and plants that also form these fossils.
AmberThe Coleoptera /koʊliːˈɒptərə/ order of insects is commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek κολεός, koleos, meaning "sheath"; and πτερόν, pteron, meaning "wing", thus "sheathed wing", because most beetles have two pairs of wings, the front pair, the "elytra", being hardened and thickened into a sheath-like, or shell-like, protection for the rear pair, and for the rear part of the beetle's body. The superficial consistency of most beetles' morphology, in particular their possession of elytra, has long suggested that the Coleoptera are monophyletic, but growing evidence indicates this is unjustified, there being arguments, for example, in favour of allocating the current suborder Adephaga their own order, or very likely even more than one.
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