I’ve got a strong fascination with Coleopterans, the ‘sheaved wings’.
Many of you might well have heard me talking at length about them. I’ve written about them now and again. I’ve owned a few in my time. They are, or course, beetles.
Beetles are a perfect example of nature and evolution. The thoughts and feelings I associate with beetles I could probably have placed on any insect. Beetles are shiny though. They are dark. They are beady.
They are a set of perfect commands encased in an exoskeleton, simple circuits that work to a set of strict stimuli. Light, warmth, moisture, height, relation to each other, relation to food, relation to predator…these are the factors that control our beetle friends. They are an immense army of perfect biological droids, working solidly almost constantly. Beetles have no eyelids, so they can’t sleep. Right now its daylight outside, so the majority of the British coleopterans will be waiting for the night. I can picture them, waiting under their stones or in cracks in rotting wood. Beady eyes staring…not moving for hour after hour. Are they thinking? Nope…just waiting for the next stimuli to command them.
Did you know there are more known species of beetle than there are for any other animal in the animal kingdom? That’s 350,000 described species. That’s 40% of all known insect species. I say described because we haven’t had enough time in our existence to document every species. Current estimations of unknown species of beetle are between 5-8 million. That’s a fair amount of beetles.
The first time a girl made me cry was when I was about six years old, when I was a pupil of St. Margaret’s (St.Maggot’s) Primary School in Durham. It was a sports day. I remember it painfully well. A clear memory. A terrible one. We were sitting on a bench waiting our turn for something…probably running from one place to another (Nazi youth anyone?) and I glanced down at the grass, where to my pleasure I saw a friendly little black beetle. He was shiny and black, and quick. Most likely he was a Common Black Ground beetle, (Pterostichus melanarius).
“Please don’t kill it!” I said to the unpleasant girl next to me who had noticed me looking at him.
“What, like this?” she said, and daintily ground her foot into my new beetle friend.
I did cry, but she just laughed.
4 comments:
A mundane yet pleasant observation. "E Cleopatro". An anagram.
I once hit someone for killing a spider. Hard. In the face. I don't remember who, though.
I once killed someone for facing a spider. That's a lie.
How rude. I didn't mean to be mundane. I'll try harder.
No, i know that's not what you meant my love x
When you have time, I would like you to write thousands of words about beetles. I want your Beetle Book, please. Thank you x x x
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