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What I Learned Today

There are some 40,000 330,000 species of beetle. There are more beetles on the planet than any other animal.

Beetles have very complex circulatory systems, including some 8-10 hearts, which seems to suggest that stabbing is not the most efficient way to do away with a beetle.

(Edited to revise number of species.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 25th, 2003 at 11:48 pm and is filed under Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “What I Learned Today”

  1. mskoog Says:
    January 26th, 2003 at 1:58 pm

    Uhhhh, are insects animals?

    Because if they are, worms pwn this planet.

    Except single cell organisms, pound for pound worms have more biomass than any other “animal”.

    or maybe the cold meds are screwing with my brain

  2. Justis Says:
    January 26th, 2003 at 2:26 pm

    Insects are animals (Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Arthropoda, Class: Insecta).

    I couldn’t find any data on global biomass, so worms could well be tops in terms of mass. However, many kinds of “worms” differ at the phylum level (Annelida, Nematoda, Arthropoda), so it can be argued that this is an overly-generalized statistic. Regardless, I was talking about numbers, not total mass.

    Anyway, I found another source for the claim that beetles are the most numerous animals on the planet.

    In addition, I also discovered that my number of species was way too low. There are 40,000 species of ground beetle. The number of total beetle species worldwide is around 330,000.

  3. mskoog Says:
    January 26th, 2003 at 7:15 pm

    Ok, I’m more sober now, I should have been more specific

    I was referring to nematodes, to quote:

    “Nematodes are unsegmented round worms. In terms of individuals, nematodes account for an estimated four of every five animals in the world. (The other fifth are mostly beetles.) There are 10,000 known species and the actual number may be more than 100,000.”

    or

    “Nematodes are the most numerous multicellular animals on earth. A handful of soil will contain thousands of the microscopic worms, many of them parasites of insects, plants or animals.”

    etc

    I guess all those years of watching nova and discovery channel paid off.

    Now, back to my cold meds!

  4. Justis Says:
    January 26th, 2003 at 7:48 pm

    How very odd…

    Well, I’m going to have to call it a draw. I’m seeing sources claiming phylum Nematoda the most numerous, and just as many claiming it’s phylum Arthropoda, and more specifically, beetles. Apparently this is one of those things that people don’t really “know”.

    So I guess we both learned something new after all.

  5. mskoog Says:
    January 26th, 2003 at 8:06 pm

    Bah

    Someone must know.

    I think this battle is at most postponed until someone way smarter than us can say one way or the other.

    I guess coldmeds tone down my arrogance just a tad, I realized I didnt say “way smarter than you” :P
    ok maybe not heh, wow I’m a prick!