Beetle
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box." --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations |
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Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek κολεός, koleos, meaning "sheath"; and πτερόν, pteron, meaning "wing", thus "sheathed wing". The reason for the name is that most beetles have two pairs of wings, the front pair, the "elytra", being hardened and thickened into a sheath-like, or shell-like, protection for the rear pair, and for the rear part of the beetle's body. The superficial consistency of most beetles' morphology, in particular their possession of elytra, has long suggested that the Coleoptera are monophyletic, but there is growing evidence that this is unjustified, there being arguments for example, in favour of allocating the current suborder Adephaga their own order, or very likely even more than one.
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