Currently browsing tag

coleoptera

The most mysterious beetle

  Described in 1996 from a single specimen found in the window of a forest cabin on the western slopes of Sikhote-Alin mountain in the Russian Far East, Sikhotealinia zhiltzovae is a real blast from the past. Tthe only other representatives of this family (Jurodidae) of beetles are Jurassic fossils.  The …

Strepsiptera

Lift off…

[featured image] Insect wings are right up there with metamorphosis in the adaptations that have allowed these animals to become as successful as they are.  Insects are pioneers of the sky and they took to the wing at least 350 million years ago in the steamy forests of the Carboniferous …