Beetles

There are more than 800,000 species of insects on earth, more than all the other plants and animals combined. Of this great number of insects, nearly half are beetles. Unlike other insects, beetles have a pair of leathery protective wings called elytra that cover their membranous flight wings. During flight, the elytra are spread apart and the two flight wings are unfolded and extended. Beetles come in a variety of shapes and colors, from red "ladybugs" and metallic green fig beetles to lightning beetles that glow in the dark and huge horned beetles resembling a miniature rhinoceros. Colorful beetles are used for jewelry and pins, and shiny tropical scarab beetles are strung together to make unusual necklaces. Beetles range in size from less than a millimeter (1/100 of an inch) to tropical giants over six inches long. The largest giants may weigh 40 million times more than their lilliputian relatives.

Beetles are the group of insects with the largest number of known species. They are placed in the order Coleoptera, meaning "sheathed wing", which contains more described species than in any other order in the animal kingdom, constituting about 25% of all known life-forms.[1] 40% of all described insect species are beetles (about 350,000 species[1]), and new species are frequently discovered. Estimates put the total number of species, described and undescribed, at between 5 and 8 million.