Nice Pictures Of Beetles

Colorado potato beetle can be a serious pest of potato, tomato, eggplant, and pepper. The common black and yellow-striped "potato bug" is a very familiar insect to home gardeners. Both the striped beetle and the black-spotted, red larva feed on potato leaves. Their damage can greatly reduce yield and even kill plants. Colorado Potato beetle overwinters as an adult in the soil, in fencerows, or under litter in garden or fields. They become active in the spring as temperatures rise and begin to feed on weeds and volunteer or early planted potatoes, even entering the soil to attack emerging foliage. Female beetles can lay 500 or more eggs over a four to five week period. Full grown larvae burrow in the ground to pupate. In five to 10 days, the adult beetle emerges. This insect can go from egg to adult in as little as 21 days. The newly emerged adult female feeds for a few days before egg laying begins. There are two full and occasionally a partial third generation each year.

Beetles are one of the most diverse groups of insects. Their order, Coleoptera (meaning "sheathed wing"), has more described species in it than in any other order in the animal kingdom.

Forty percent of all described insect species are beetles (about 350,000 species), and new species are regularly discovered. Estimates put the total number of species, described and undescribed, at between 5 and 8 million. This is why when J.B.S Haldane, a Scottish geneticist, was asked what his studies of nature revealed about God, he replied, "An inordinate fondness for beetles".

Beetles can be found in almost all habitats, but are not known to occur in the sea or in the polar regions. They impact the ecosystem in several ways. On the one hand, they feed on plants and fungi, breaking down animal and plant debris, and eating other invertebrates. On the other hand they are prey of various animals including birds and mammals.

Tiger Beetle

Certain species are agricultural pests, such as the the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, the Colorado potato beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata, or the mungbean beetle Callosobruchus maculatus Fabr. while others are important controls of agricultural pests. For example, lady beetles (family Coccinellidae) consume aphids, fruit flies, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects that damage crops.