Beetles in the Audubon Insectarium

May 25, 2009

On our visit to the Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans we found an amazing collection of mounted beetles . Over one of the displays was the statement that when asked what could be concluded about the Creator from the study of creation, the biologist J. B. S. Haldane replied that the Creator had displayed "an inordinate fondness for beetles". While there is some question about whether Haldane said that, it seemed to be an appropriate comment here in view of the fact that some 40% of the known insect species are beetles, about 350,000 species according to the Haldane source above.

This is just a selection of the hundreds of beetles displayed. This one at near left looks like someone crocheted it!

This shows some of the extreme variety of sizes of beetles.