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The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 described species, is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal species; [2] new species are discovered frequently, with estimates suggesting that there are between 0.9 and 2.1 million total species.
In an important example of co-evolution, a number of highly successful insect groups — especially the Hymenoptera (wasps, bees and ants) and Lepidoptera (butterflies) as well as many types of Diptera (flies) and Coleoptera (beetles) — evolved in conjunction with flowering plants during the Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago).
The Carboniferous insect species Stephanastus polinae has been interpreted by some authors as the sister group of Coleoptera and Strepsiptera (as its own extinct order, Skleroptera), but this interpretation has been disputed and it has been alternatively suggested to be a member of the extinct order Protelytroptera (a stem group of the modern ...
Polyphaga is the largest and most diverse suborder of beetles.It comprises 144 families in 16 superfamilies, and displays an enormous variety of specialization and adaptation, with over 350,000 described species, or approximately 90% of the beetle species discovered thus far.
Myxophaga is the second-smallest suborder of the Coleoptera after Archostemata, consisting of roughly 65 species of small to minute beetles in four families. The members of this suborder are aquatic and semiaquatic , and feed on algae .
Insect wings are adult outgrowths of the insect exoskeleton that enable insects to fly. They are found on the second and third thoracic segments (the mesothorax and metathorax ), and the two pairs are often referred to as the forewings and hindwings , respectively, though a few insects lack hindwings, even rudiments.
Coleoptera: Family: Dytiscidae: Subfamily: Laccophilinae: Genus: Agabetes Crotch, 1873 [1] [2] Type species; Colymbetes acuductus. Harris, 1828 [3] Agabetes is a ...
This generally produces less power and is less efficient than asynchronous muscle, which accounts for the independent evolution of asynchronous flight muscles in several separate insect clades. [ 3 ] Insects that beat their wings more rapidly, such as the bumblebee , use asynchronous muscle; this is a type of muscle that contracts more than ...