Refine
Document Type
- Article (6)
- Part of Periodical (1)
Language
- English (7)
Has Fulltext
- yes (7)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (7)
Institute
- Extern (1)
In one of her latest papers in the American Entomologist, in 1995, Prof. Berenbaum mentions how young people (and entomologists alike) are martyrizing insects and arachnids, by pulling their wings or their legs, burning them with magnifying glasses, without mentioning the lepidopterists who transfix the thorax of the female butterflies to induce them to lay eggs. Such behavior was once one of the acts of the emperor Nero when he was a child. His tutor, the philosopher Seneca, when he saw him pulling the wings off a fly, predicted that he would be very cruel. It was said t h a t the French biologist Etienne Rabaud, well known for his systematic opposition to everything, verified by the scholars of his time, used to cut in half the legs of the daddy longlegs and to declare that those legs were useless because those Arachnids walked better with shorter appendages. Rabaud was also known for removing the swimming bladder of fish to improve, as he said, their balance in water. Such is the tone of this book.
The species of Tirnarcha are unique living fossils among the leaf beetles. They walk very slowly, cannot escape by flight, and their majestic bearing can be compared to the Athenian judges, the Timarches. Unfortunately, they are vulnerable to habitat disturbance, insecticides, and environmental changes. Some of the European such as Timarcha tenebricosa and T. goettingensis are becoming more and more rare because of these same habitat changes.
This entirely new book is the first on the biology of beetles since Crowson's book, published in 1981 by Academic Press. This new work in some ways completes Crowson's, but in no way is it a useless repetition. The two books together give a good idea of the biology of this enormous order, here comprising more than 200 families. Paulian's classification is slightly, but not fundamentally, different from Crowson's. There are excellent chapters on endogeous, caverniculous, aquatic, coprophagous, termitophilous, and myrmecophilous beetles. Termitophilous beetles have already been treated well in Termitologia by Grasse (1986, Masson, Paris). Paulian is a well-known specialist on Scarabaeidae and those beetles are extensively reviewed, including the American species, from data published in the United States and Mexico. The larvae of beetles are also well covered. The book was printed in Hungary and we regret several misspellings, and the misuse of French accents here and there.
This is a remarkable new book which is certainly well above all that has been done up to now in this field. Moreover, it deals with a fauna on which we have very few biological data. One hundred nine beetle families are reviewed, from the curious Micromalthidae to the Curculionidae. Mrs. Costa showed me the proofs of the book in 1987 in Sao Paulo, and I had the opportunity then to admire the good quality and even perfection of the drawings.
Anyone who has ever seen a Western will be familiar with the defensive tactics employed by the pioneers: The wagon train is formed into a ring, women and children on the inside, with the men firing out at the circling Indians. The larvae of some Coleoptera and Hymenoptera have long employed similar tactics, in defense against their predators (ants, bugs) and parasitoids (wasps, flies).
Retournement or turning of the aedeagus about its longitudinal axis through about 180o during development is known in Chrysomeloidea (Coleoptera). This change in the orientation of the organ may be observed during the postembryonic development. This change produces certain morphological effects. By observing these morphological features in the imago the retournement may be inferred. Such morphological features in Curculionidae (Coleoptera) are here recorded. From this it has been inferred not only that retournement of the aedeagus is included in the ontogeny of curculionids, but also that the change of orientation of the organ occurs by the same mechanism as in Chrysomeloidea. These inferences attest the notion of a close phyletic relationship between the superfamilies Curculionoidea and Chrysomeloidea.
