- Common Name: Beetle
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Arthropoda
- Class: Insecta
- Order: Coleoptera
- Suborder: 4 Suborders
- Species: 400,000+
19 Beetle Facts for Kids
- Beetles are a large group of insects that are in the Coleoptera order.
- There are around 400,000 known species of living beetles.
- The Curculionidae (weevils) family is the largest family in the Coleoptera order with around 83,000 weevil species.
- Beetles make up around 40% of all known insects and 25% of all known animal life-forms on our planet. This means one out of every four living animals is a beetle.
- Beetles can be found on every continent except Antarctica.
- Beetles can be found living in every habitat around the world expect in polar climates.
- Beetles have a four stage lifecycle, and those stages are egg, larva, pupa and adult.
- The average lifespan for all beetle species is one year.
- There are some species of beetles, such as the Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) that are considered pests and can do consider damage to a region they’re not native to.
- There are some species of beetles, such as lady bugs and dung beetles, that are beneficial to humans. Lady bugs eat aphids that can damage crops, and dung beetles can be used to remove cattle dung from grazing lands.
- Dung beetles are a species of beetle that eat feces (animal poop).
- Japanese beetles are a native Japan beetle species that have become a major invasive species in North America.
- Rhinoceros beetle species are some of the largest beetle species of the Coleoptera order.
- The Hercules beetle (Dynastes hercules) is the largest species of beetle in the world.
- The featherwing beetle (Scydosella musawasensis) is the smallest beetle species in the world and its also the smallest free-living insect.
- The Mecynorhina torquata beetle species was used in a proof-of-concept surveillance projected Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
- During the Victorian era it was very popular for people to collect beetles. Alfred Russel Wallace claimed to have a collection of over 83,000 beetles.
- In ancient Egypt, the Sacred scarab (Scarabaeus sacer) beetle was considered sacred.
- The oldest fossil found that resembled a beetle is from 270 million years ago from the Late Paleozoic period.
Beetle Pictures
A picture of a dung beetle on top of dung.Credit: San Diego Zoo
A picture of two japanese beetles on a leaf.Credit: Ronald S. Kelley / Vermont FPR
A picture of the japanese rhinoceros beetle.Credit: Seongbin IM / Flickr
Additional Resources on Beetles
- Beetles – Find more cool beetle facts on the Smithsonian website.
- What are Beetles? – Learn what a beetle is on the Texas A&M Insects in the City website.
- Beetle – Wikipedia – Explore more facts about beetles on the Wikipedia website.