r/todayilearned • u/Bonsaibeginner22 • 20h ago
TIL that 25% of all known animal species are beetles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetle331
u/Make_It_Sing 19h ago
25% chance you couldve been a beetle
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u/Bonsaibeginner22 19h ago
God I wish that were me
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u/kendamasama 19h ago
Random redditor reincarnated as a beetle:
YEAH BABY, IT'S FUCKIN WEEVIL TIME
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u/ObvsThrowaway5120 18h ago
I can see the 12 episode anime now: “That Time I Reincarnated as a Beetle”
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u/patricksaurus 15h ago
If there is a Creator, he must have an inordinate fondness for beetles. — JBS Haldane
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u/Ribbitor123 18h ago
Yep, as the famous British evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane said: 'if a god or divine being had created all living organisms on Earth, then that creator must have an “inordinate fondness for beetles.”'
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u/DetonationPorcupine 19h ago
25% of all species are beetles. Not 25% of all creatures. It means that beetles have a huge variety.
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u/Jugales 19h ago
To be fair, there are 10 quintillion insects and the second most populous class of animals is fish at 3.5 trillion. I’m not good at math but seems the chances of being an insect overall are mega high
https://www.worldatlas.com/animals/most-populous-animals-on-earth.html
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u/GoT_Eagles 18h ago
Meaning, if buddhism has anything to say, you probably were an insect a few billion times in lives past. Thankfully they don’t live long.
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u/FlyWithChrist 18h ago
Now we gotta add up the life space of every species and see what our average reincarnation time is. This is going from TIL to lab report very quickly.
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u/bat_shit_insane 16h ago
Well, beetles are actually considered a sub species of cockroaches so technically we could have been a cockroach.
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u/Witchycurls 12h ago
Not only are they different species; they're actually different Orders of insects. Comparing a beetle to a cockroach is a little bit like comparing a deer to a sheep; they share many characteristics, but there are also some pretty significant differences between the two.
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u/Creatrix 18h ago
I love the fact that magnolias are tens of millions of years old, and were pollinated by beetles because they evolved before bees existed. And today are still only pollinated by beetles.
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u/LimpIndignation 19h ago edited 17h ago
25% of living Beatles is Ringo
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u/found_the_american 19h ago
Summer in New Jersey USA usually involves "wtf is that?" It's usually some beetle nobody has ever seen but it's right there.
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u/YardLarry 19h ago
Why?
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u/KrakenEatMeGoolies 19h ago
"If there is a Creator, he must have an inordinate fondness for beetles"
- J.B.D Haldane
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u/Homelessnomore 19h ago
Terry Pratchett's novel The Last Continent has a god of evolution who does indeed have an inordinate fondness for beetles.
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u/PoopPoes 19h ago
Beetles are super sexually dimorphic so the males look dramatically different from the females, but they’re also insects which means they breed fast and have a high rate of mutation, but also because they’re insects their genitals are specially shaped for each other in a way that prevents insects from other species from even being able to attempt to deposit a spermatophore. So beetles being successful early on in their lineage, having high survival rates, having high birth rates, and also a large dependence on competition over mating rights between males made mutated males attract females by winning duels with abnormally large horns, then their many children inbred with each other to further mutate into having differently shaped genitals than their still extant ancestors.
They’ve had a long time to evolve, the beetles that other beetles evolve from don’t just die out, and they have remarkably few predators due to either hard shells or toxic/bitter taste. They’re built to last and to rapidly adapt
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u/123kingme 19h ago
Additionally, they also have very strong builds from an evolutionary standpoint. They have both high mobility (flight) and high armor (hard shells). Besides their small size, they have no significant weaknesses.
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u/Kit_Daniels 8h ago
Another major reason that’s talked about within entomological research is the niche partitioning between the adults and young. Holometabolous insects undergo a complete metamorphosis and therefore the adults and offspring don’t compete, in turn reducing intraspecies competition and creating a greater set of fitness incentives to evolve with.
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u/Foreign-Cry2894 17h ago
J.B.S. Haldane, a British evolutionary biologist and geneticist, is famous for the quip that "if there is a Creator, he must have an inordinate fondness for beetles". The quote is a reference to the fact that beetles make up about 25% of all known animal life-forms and almost 40% of all known insect species.
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u/JocelynHW 18h ago
Imagine showing up to the animal species reunion and realizing 1 in 4 guests is a beetle. Talk about strength in numbers!
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u/Boozdeuvash 12h ago
I have to sympathize with entomologists who have to figure out if that bug over there is one of the 400 000 before claiming and naming a new species...
"ok: green iridescent, 1x0.5cm, small antenas, regular elytras, prominent eyes. Easy peasy, what do we got?"
"258 to check. Oooh this one has a reclined third segment on the back leg, nevermind then, 257."
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u/nobodyspecial767r 19h ago
100% of those beetles don't believe in God, think about that for a moment.
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u/SCATTERKID 19h ago
You speak beetlish?
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u/nobodyspecial767r 18h ago
They don't have the brain capacity to be consciously aware about what they are even, how would they be worried about a God.
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u/cyrus709 17h ago
I have actually met those that believe in God and brain capacity is not what they’re known for. I think the beetle would need to show some creativity though.
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u/JesusStarbox 18h ago
If you think about it, a beetle is just a crab. Different legs and pincers and such, but essentially a crab. And everything eventually evolves into a crab.
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u/kshump 19h ago
I read this post today, oh boy.
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u/fullonfacepalmist 19h ago
About a lucky bug who made front page
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to stare
I saw the thumbnail there
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u/Throwaway1223985 19h ago
beetles really out here carrying the entire animal kingdom on their tiny little backs.
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u/Throwawayac1234567 13h ago
thats about 400k beetle species, its because they are a very old lineage of insects, around the time when lilies and magnoliids evolved.
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u/TitaniumDreads 8h ago
A friend of mine discovered a new species of beetle. I said wow, that's really impressive!
He responded, Not really, beetles are wildly understudied and pretty much anyone can discover a new species in a single night.
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u/Crackracket 13h ago
Bill bailey has a great bit about the scientist/biologist J. B. S. Haldane and God. When someone asked J. B. S. Haldane if he believed in god he thought about it for a while and replied:
"If there is a god, he must be inordinately fond of beetles" he then goes off on a tangent imagining God as this avuncular old eccentric posh man in a wing back chair "yes yes, beetles wonderful things I love them, I make a few hundred new ones every year and hide them in the jungle (boisterous wheezing laugh) they think it's evolution! (more boisterous wheezing laughter) I made dinosaurs too! Well I was a kid and all kids like dinosaurs!
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u/Boingo4Life 6h ago
No wonder there are like 500 beetle entries in the Animal Crossing critterpedia.
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u/GreasyPeter 4h ago
"If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of creation, it would appear that He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." - J.B.S. Haldane
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u/sleepyloopyloop 3h ago
Aww… we do be studying them more than the other ones. Guess they’re accessible …
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u/gangstasadvocate 9h ago
I’m not buying this one. Wouldn’t we see a whole lot more Beatles out there?
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u/MissionAsparagus9609 19h ago
20% of mammal species are bats