Evolution
The oldest beetle fossils are over 265 million years old dating back to the Permian period. Beetles have diversified into many different sizes and forms. A possible reason for the great success of beetles is that there are such a high number of lineages that may have emerged due to a variation among ecological niches. Many members of the family Silphidae are flightless, but have wings. The evolutionary change is thought to be a result due to the changes in habitat over time. Researchers have found that most flight-capable species in this group feed on vertebrate carcasses, whereas flightless species will feed on soil invertebrates. They also found that egg production increased with flight loss because of a more limited food supply. The reason behind this is because with less food more offspring would die before reaching sexual maturity.
A fossil of N. humator dating around 10,500 years was described in 1962 by Pearson.
Read more about this topic: Silphidae
Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“As a natural process, of the same character as the development of a tree from its seed, or of a fowl from its egg, evolution excludes creation and all other kinds of supernatural intervention.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“The more specific idea of evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)