"God displays an inordinate fondness for beetles" because there are so many of them... according J.B. Haldane. Coleoptera contains 400,000 species of beetles, 40% of all insects and one-quarter of all life forms. It is estimated that there are well over a million (maybe 4 million) undiscovered species. Interestingly, weevils also belong to this order.

The DNA of living beetles and evolution have positioned their origin 300 million years ago, during the Lower Permian. The Permian–Triassic extinction event, also known as the Great Dying, occurred 252 million years) ago, divided the Permian and Triassic periods (also the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras). This was the Earth's most severe extinction event, with 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species eliminated – considerably more profound than the Cretaceous asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs.

Most important for this discussion, it is the only known mass extinction of insects with 57% of all families and 83% of all genera killed. The loss of so much biodiversity made the recovery of life on Earth significantly longer than after other extinction events. The beetles comeback came considerably later, with many fossils found from the Jurassic and the Cretaceous.

All images Copyright  2012-2021 by Guy Iannuzzi