Abstract
Many biologists claim that beetles are the most diverse of all animal groups, with the number of described forms commonly cited as around 350,000. Whether or not they will prove eventually to be outnumbered in species by Hymenoptera (with their vast array of tiny parasitic taxa still largely not enumerated), Coleoptera are undoubtedly enormously rich in species and widespread in many terrestrial and freshwater environments throughout the world. As a consequence of the widespread knowledge that Charles Darwin was a beetle enthusiast as a young man, of Haldane’s comment about the likings of the Creator, and of Erwin’s (1982) focus on tropical beetles to estimate wider species abundance, as well as around two centuries of hobbyist and collector interests, beetles are amongst the most popular insects. Their richness is acknowledged widely as valuable both per se and in wider evaluations of ecological condition. Beetles are important also in a variety of other applied and more esoteric contexts.
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New, T.R. (2006). Beetles and conservation. In: New, T.R. (eds) Beetle Conservation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6047-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6047-2_1
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