This is one of my favorite orders of insect if not thee favorite one. And here are some of my past photos of them. I have mainly traveled in Spain and in Norway the last years and hence that is their origin. They are an amazing group to work with and you have everything from the easily identifiable to the very hard ones where you have to dissect the genitalia to be able to confirm the species. It is a huge and diverse group and it is amongst the three largest orders of insects we know today. They have concurred an array of different habitats all over this world. I myself worked with Carabidae and Staphilynidae from the mountain areas in Norway, then as a re-sampling project of this article (Ottesen, 1996). I am not the only one interested in these fascinating creatures (went a little David Attenborough there). In addition to being one of the most studied groups of insects it is also collected by people all over the world, and for huge sums of money. This has in some cases become a problem for the survival of some species (New, 2007).
NEW, T. 2007. Beetles and conservation. In: NEW, T. R. (ed.) Beetle Conservation. Springer Netherlands.
OTTESEN, P. S. 1996. Niche Segregation of Terrestrial Alpine Beetles (Coleoptera) in Relation to Environmental Gradients and Phenology. Journal of Biogeography, 23, 353-369.
Family Cleridae, genus Trichodes but lacking species right now
Carabus coreaceus
Carabidae;
Cicindela rupestris
Cantharidae;
Chantaris nigra
Cerambycidae;
Rhagium inquisitor
This is just to show that looking for beetles takes you to some beautifull places. A sunny day and your camera surrounded by life. Does not get to much better than that,
Family; Meloidae,After spending some time searching in various litterature i finally found a good match. This appears to be
Physomeloe corallifer, a blister beetle
endemic to The Iberian penninsula.
Scarabidae From Spain, i sadly at present time do not have a good key for this family.
That is all for now. I will post a similar post on my other pet group of animals...the spiders, and then whatever i feel like talking about
