Beetles in Modern Cultures
Beetles still play roles in modern culture. One example is in insect fighting for entertainment and gambling. This sport exploits the territorial behavior and mating competition of certain species of large beetles. Enthusiasts collect and raise various species of insects for fight. Among beetles the most popular are large species of Stag Beetle, Rhinoceros Beetle, Kabutomushi, and Goliath Beetle.
The study of beetles is called coleopterology (from Coleoptera, see above, and Greek -λογία, -logia), and its practitioners are coleopterists. Coleopterists have formed organizations to facilitate the study of beetles. Among these is The Coleopterists Society, an international organization based in the United States. Such organizations may have both professionals and amateurs interested in beetles as members. Research in this field is often published in peer-reviewed journals specific to the field of coleopterology, though journals dealing with general entomology also publish many papers on various aspects of beetle biology. Some of the journals specific to beetle research are:
- The Coleopterist (United Kingdom beetle fauna)
- The Coleopterists Bulletin (published by The Coleopterists Society)
- Elytron (published by the European Association of Coleopterology)
Read more about this topic: Beetle, Beetles in Relation To People
Famous quotes containing the words beetles, modern and/or cultures:
“What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The great British Library—an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature to which modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or “pure English, undefiled” wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought.”
—Washington Irving (1783–1859)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)