Beetles have sexual reproduction, and almost all go through complete metamorphosis. Some beetles have complex behavior to get a mate. Pheromones are used, and different species use different pheromones. Before reproduction, some male beetles sometimes fight to claim a female. This especially happens with stag beetles: males will fight using their long mandibles. More often, male and female beetle go through a long routine before mating. The details differ in each species and that is the point. It is essential that mating takes place between beetles of the same species.
Some beetles give special care to their eggs or larvae. Some scarab beetles, called dung beetles, roll balls of dung (faeces) and put them in a hole in the ground. The female lays her eggs in the dung. When the eggs hatch, the larvae will eat the dung that their mother supplied for them.
In 2009, a fossil beetle was found in the Pennsylvanian of Mazon Creek, Illinois. This put the origin of the beetles back to . Fossils from this time have been found in Asia and Europe, for instance in the red slate fossil beds of Niedermoschel near Mainz, Germany. Other fossils have been found in Obora, Czech Republic and Tshekarda in the Ural Mountains, Russia. The first discoveries from North America in Oklahoma were published in 2005 and 2008.
After the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the fossil record of insects is poor, but there are some beetles from the Lower Triassic. At the Babiy Kamen site in the Kuznetsk Basin, there are many beetle fossils, including entire specimens of the infraorders Archostemata (e.g. Ademosynidae, Schizocoleidae), Adephaga (e.g., Triaplidae, Trachypachidae) and Polyphaga (e.g. Hydrophilidae, Byrrhidae, Elateroidea).
During the Jurassic (), there was a dramatic increase in the number of beetle families, including the development and growth of carnivorous and herbivorous species. Dung beetles, and herbivorous beetles living on conifers, were common in the Jurassic period. The evolution of flowering plants in the Cretaceous led to the vast numbers of beetle species there are today.
There are four living suborders of beetles:
Different kinds of beetles can be divided into groups called families. There are many beetle families. The biggest families are listed here.
Popular names are often misleading; that is why biologists use scientific names in Latin. People call some beetles by other names. Fireflies (also called lightning bugs) are actually beetles; so are ladybirds or ladybugs, which biologists call lady beetles.
Some beetles cause trouble for farmers and people in forests because they eat crops or trees. These beetles are called pests. One beetle that hurts crops is the Colorado beetle; another is the Maize weevil. One that destroys trees is the Emerald ash borer.
Other beetles help people; lady beetles (also called ladybirds and ladybugs) eat insects that hurt crops and trees.
People who study beetles are called coleopterists.
Pope John IX
John IX () was Pope from 898 to 900.
Although his exact birth day is unknown, he was a native of Tivoli, which is near Rome.
He was a Benedictine monk.
He was made Pope because of the support of Emperor Lambert of Spoleto. Lambert was of the Formosian party. Pope Sergius III who had been elected by the Anti-Formosians was chased from office with arms. John IX died unexpectedly in the year 900, which again led to feuds between different groups.
Houston Steward Chamberlain
Houston Steward Chamberlain (September 9,1855 - January 9, 1927) was a writer of books. He wrote many popular scientific books, about Richard Wagner, Immanuel Kant, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe amongst others. He was born in Portsmouth, but later emigrated to Germany. In later life he became a German citizen. He was acquainted with Hitler and died in Bayreuth. He is known for his Antisemitism. His best-known book, "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century" is seen as a standard antisemitic work of the early 20th century.
Arthur de Gobineau
Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau (July 14, 1816 — October 13, 1882) was a French aristocrat. He was well educated, and wrote many things. He became famous for developing the racialist theory of the Aryan Master race in his book "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" (1853-1855).
Staff (music)
A staff (or stave) is the name given to the five horizontal lines on which we can write music. Musical notes can be placed either on a line (i.e. with a line going through the middle of the note head) or in a space. There are four inside spaces as well as the two outer spaces at the top or bottom.
The higher the pitch of the note the higher it will be on the staff. Taking the white notes of a keyboard: each note (A, B, C, D etc.) is placed higher on the stave (line, space, line, space etc.). A clef is needed to show which notes they are. There are different clefs to suit high, medium or low instruments.
This musical example shows the opening of "Symphony no 5" by Beethoven. The first three notes are on the second line (counting from the bottom). They are Gs, because there is a treble clef at the beginning of the staff. The fourth note is a little lower: on the bottom line, the E line (because of the flats in the key signature it is an E flat). The next note is between the other two in pitch (an F). After the three Fs comes a D in the outside bottom space.
Sometimes composers have used staves with fewer or more than 5 lines, but the five-line staff started to become the usual one in Western music in the 13th century.
When notes are a little too high or low to put on the stave, extension lines are used. These are called ledger lines.
If two or more staves are being played at the same time the staves are joined on the left by a bracket which is called a brace. Piano music, for example, is written on two staves: one for the right hand and one for the left.
Instruments that only play a rhythm (such as the cymbals), do not need a stave. The notes can be written just on one line. The beats are crosses. It's modern notation started from the Catholic Church.
Colorado potato beetle
The Colorado potato beetle, "Leptinotarsa decemlineata", is a beetle. It is sometimes just called the Colorado beetle. It is one of the worst potato pests in the world.
The beetle is notable for its ability to resist pesticides. Over the last 50 years it has become resistant to 52 chemical compounds used in insecticides, including cyanide. However, not every population is resistant to every chemical.
The Colorado beetle first lived in the southwest United States and northern Mexico. Now it lives in most of North America and also in Europe and Asia.
The Colorado potato beetle now eats cultivated potato plants. Both larvae and adults eat the leaves and strip the plant down to a skeleton. They may also attack tomato and eggplants. There can be so many Colorado potato beetles in potato farms that they destroy the potatoes.
Because the beetle rapidly evolves resistance to chemicals, the best defence may be biological control. A ground beetle, "Lebia grandis" is a predator of the eggs and larvae, and its larvae are parasitoids of the Colorado beetle's pupae.
"Beauveria bassiana" (Hyphomycetes) is a pathogenic fungus that infects many insects, including the Colorado beetle. It is probably the most widely used natural enemy of the Colorado beetle. There are commercial formulations that can be applied using a pesticide sprayer.
The Colorado potato beetle did not always eat potato plants. This is because potatoes came from South America, not near the beetle's original range. Before people brought potatoes to North America, the Colorado beetle ate a plant called buffalo-bur.
Opiliones
Harvestmen are eight-legged arachnids. Even though they belong to the arachnid family, harvestmen are not spiders. They are in the order Opiliones or Phalangids.