Description

Early Eocene
Green River Fm.- Parachute Creek Mbr.
Douglas Pass, CO, USA
3 beetles on 2.5 inch slab. Nice contrast.

Insect. Arthropod. Coleoptera.

Here are a trio of beetles from a time about 10 million years after the dinosaurs died out. Horses were the size of cats. Wyoming was a tropical lowland with palm trees and crocodiles and the largest land animal was about the size of a cow. Oh yeah, they were keeping it weird back then.

Primitive beetles diverged from other insect groups by the Early Permian.  They survived the end-Permian mass extinction with true beetles appearing and diversifying by the Late Triassic.  Most modern groups had appeared by the end of the Cretaceous.  Today, there are more than 300,000 species of beetles.  It is true that they are so varied that beetles account for almost one-fourth of all animal species.

I have heard that people consider them as pests.  Really?  Ladybugs are a kind of beetle.  Who hates a ladybug?  They actually eat pests like aphids and scale insects. You can call me the bus driver because I just took someone to school.