Can You Tell Me Some Basic Facts About Beetles?

The beetles are the largest single order of insects. There are more than 360 000 named species of beetle. About a quarter of all animal species is a beetle.

Beetles range in size from 0.25 millimetres to over 19 centimetres long. Beetles live in all parts of the world except Antarctica. Beetles have lived on Earth for about 265 million years.

Beetles make use of every possible food source. Many are scavengers, feeding on dead animals and plants, others prey on other insects and small animals and a few types of beetle are parasites on other animals. A few families of beetle are vegetarian and eat flowers and pollen, or fruit or seeds.

Some beetles live on mountains more than 5 000 metres high. The African Goliath beetle, Goliath goliath, is the heaviest beetle in the world and weighs 100 grams. The world's strongest insects are the giant scarab beetles (rhinoceros beetles) of Africa. They can support 850 times their own weight.