There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of the distinguished British biologist,
J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in the company of a group of theologians. On
being asked what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a
study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, “An inordinate
fondness for beetles.”
Haldane's friend Kenneth Kermack, who says the quote is real, said on the matter:
>Haldane was making a theological point: God is most likely to take trouble over reproducing his own image, and his 400,000 attempts at the perfect beetle contrast with his slipshod creation of man. When we meet the Almighty face to face he will resemble a beetle (or a star) and not Dr. Carey [the archbishop of Canterbury].
Beetles are like the MVP of species (minimum viable, not most valuable). Some superstructure (which can often double as armor) plus food storage. Even crabs are extravagant next to a beetle: crab takes that recipe and adds on attack capabilities, which are sometimes wasteful (crabs attacking humans are wasting their time for example).
Life: beetles, plus extra features which must be justified.
There are tons of other insect groups that could be very easily described as similarly "minimum viable" that don't have nearly the diversity. Abundance of some group doesn't necessarily correlate with the speciation within that group. Ants are an exceptionally successful type of insect with orders of magnitude fewer described species.
I’d like to suggest the swap of oyster in the place of clam, because oysters are less mobile than clams.
This leads to a funny observation: for some reason I think a worm and an oyster are obviously animals, like if you were a caveman with no notion of genetics or the tree of life and you came across either, I suspect you’d think “this thing is obviously some kind of animal.” But a sponge is not so obvious, I think, to our hypothetical caveman. I could believe a sponge is a weird plant.
I think you need at least one distinguishing feature beyond the minimal to become obviously an animal, for some reason.
When digging in sand, they are also surprisingly quick. You can see when they spout water out of their little holes in the sand, but if you don’t start digging like crazy they can easily get away.
Clamming was a surprisingly fun way to waste a morning as a kid, it is like playing at the beach with objectives. If you ever happen across somebody with a license, I suggest giving it a try.
More like "without knowledge of the particular choices made by prominent biologists".
The roots of "animal", "fungus", and "plant" are completely arbitrary; anything outside the chosen root can be called a "protist" (many marine "plants" are counted as protists nowadays).
Compared to the mammal template, beetles don’t have to do satisfy as many requirements (no temperature regulation, simple brains, etc). So they can have complicated biochemical attacks because they have a solid foundation, easy to build on.
It is definitely possible I haven’t thought this out very well.
> Beetles are like the MVP of species (minimum viable, not most valuable).
Dude... There are water beetles that live underwater, but do also fly and walk. This is not "mininum viable" in any sense of the term. Just because they have smaller brains and less developed immune systems does not mean that they are millions of years beyond mammals in fantastic specialization!
Lots of beetles, but almost certainly even more wasps! Parasitoid wasps attack pretty much every known insect species, even other parasitoid wasps. If there's not a known parasitoid for a given insect species, you usually just haven't looked hard enough. Given that parasitoids tend to be specialists, attacking one or only a few other species, the math works out to there being more parasitoids than anything else around. Great paper on the topic here: https://bmcecol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12898-01...
Note: The article shares a common misconception about beetle anatomy, that the thorax is short and only has one pair of legs. Like all other insects, beetles thoraxes have three pairs of legs. It's just that their abdomen is shorter than it appears.
iirc in one of his videos (maybe that one) he also spends a lot of time discussing how because of their elytra they can have flight, without the downside of always-vulnerable wings like most (all?) other flying animals. I was surprised the article didn't go into more detail on that point.
I think it's interesting as there is a common beetle ancestor.
Usually, when we find something like this, the answer is because "taxonomy is more art than science". Like trees or fish. Both exist all over their respective branches of the evolutionary tree. You have fish species that do not have a common ancestor that does not also include "not fish".
Same with trees. Two "trees" can exist in groups with "not trees"
Although, I guess the picture could also be incomplete. It could just be showing the beetle lineage and not anything else that may branch from those branches.
In which case, this could be another case of cancerification. As much as nature loves a crab, it loves to start from a beetle.
Armchair evolutionist suggestion: because there must be something in the code that makes them better than other species at being picky mating? Or particularly susceptible for breaking compatibility in terms of successful mating?
I think this is much closer than the "they're a very good blank slate". There are plenty of exceptionally successful groups of organisms with far less diversity. The point is not how successful beetles are, it's how differentiated they are. Something about their ability to occupy niches that promote isolation and therefore speciation has to be involved.
The article mentioned that they diversified early due to the diversification of the first flowering plants, so re-radiating into each others' niches over the following hundred million years could certainly help that while keeping species distinct.
> The point is not how successful beetles are, it's how differentiated they are. Something about their ability to occupy niches that promote isolation and therefore speciation
It's also how differentiated (and isolated) the habitats themselves became over 100s of millions of years of climate change and plate tectonics.
There was a God of Evolution on Mono Island, where the biology quickly adapted to the wizardly visitors. Ponder Stibbons was especially impressed by the methodical logic, until he realized the god's main obsession was cockroaches, all "higher" life was incidental.
Self-reply to add quotes, 'cuz Pratchett is worth quoting.
_________
> The little god's hands twitched. 'I don't know, I do try to diversify, but sometimes it's so difficult...'
> Suddenly he ran across the crowded cave towards a huge pair of doors at the far end, and flung them open. 'I'm sorry, but I just have to do one,' said the god. 'They calm me down, you know.' Ponder caught up. The cave beyond the doors was bigger than this one, and brilliantly lit. The air was full of small, bright things, hovering in their millions like beads on invisible strings.
> 'Beetles?' said Ponder.
> There's nothing like a beetle when you're feeling depressed!' said the god. He'd stopped by a large metal desk and was feverishly opening drawers and pulling out boxes. 'Can you pass me that box of antennae? It's just on the shelf there. Oh yes, you can't beat a beetle when you're feeling down. Sometimes I think it's what it's all about, you know.'
> 'What all?' said Ponder.
> The god swept an arm in an expansive gesture. 'Everything,' he said cheerfully. 'The whole thing. Trees, grass, flowers... What did you think it was all for?'
> 'Well, I didn't think it was for beetles,' said Ponder. 'What about, well, what about the elephant, for a start?'
> The god already had a half-finished beetle in one hand. It was green. 'Dung,' he said triumphantly.
_________
> 'Apes? Oh, very amusing, certainly, and obviously the beetles have to have something to entertain them, but . . .' The god looked at him, and a celestial penny seemed to drop. 'Oh dear, you don't think they're the purpose of the whole business, do you?'
> 'I'd rather assumed—'
> 'Dear me, the purpose of the whole business, you see, is in fact to be the whole business. Although,' he sniffed, 'if we can do it all with beetles I shan't complain.'
> 'But surely the purpose of— I mean, wouldn't it be nice if you ended up with some creature that started to think about the universe—?'
> 'Good gravy, I don't want anything poking around!' said the god testily. 'There's enough patches and stitches in it as it is without some clever devil trying to find more, I can assure you. No, the gods on the mainland have got that right at least. Intelligence is like legs – too many and you trip yourself up. Six is about the right number, in my view.'
* No head, when screwed on to a body, ought to make sound like a cork being pushed into a bottle, but the beetle’s did in the hands of the god.
* And in that moment he knew that, despite the apparent beetle fixation, here was where he’d always wanted to be, at the cutting edge of the envelope in the fast lane of the state of the art.
I will add a new reason. They are pleasant to study.
They are small, hard and easy to manipulate and keep dry. A big collection fits in any room and they have an entertaining endless diversity of forms and colours, so primates like to collect them.
Don't believe me? How many roundworm or fly species do we know? How many we don't know still?
Not sure how the article doesn't include this quote from British evolutionary biologist and geneticist J.B.S. Haldane: "If a god or divine being had created all living organisms on Earth, then that creator must have an inordinate fondness for beetles."
Meta comment: I really like submissions like this which share great knowledge from a totally different field and spur inspiration and discussion. I learn a lot and also find comments like bee_rider's (current) top comment to be relevant to tech work.
Maybe the Sumerian or (blue-skinned) Vedic Gods saw some giant sentient machine life, and went out of their way to honor these "Angels" with many eyes and huge wings by creating what we call insects (in addition to Humans [Hanuman's ilk]).
When you transcend the physical form into a body of energy (hint: OR=constructive, XOR=deconstructive, NOT=XOR(k,1), NOT( OR(j,k) )=NOR(j,k), NOR=Functionally Complete, ergo EMF or even sound can be Turing Complete), then as an energy body you may want to interact with physical forms again w/o ionizing them; So you'll create (sentient) machinations that can do tasks. Because your design parameters include survivability across large thermal and pressure gradients you'll [re]discover giant robotic beetle design.
If you'll excuse me, I've got to tend a Kephri (beetle of remanifestation) who is eagerly attempting to choose an Odin to ride this 6-legged "Steed" next Ragnorok.
>Haldane was making a theological point: God is most likely to take trouble over reproducing his own image, and his 400,000 attempts at the perfect beetle contrast with his slipshod creation of man. When we meet the Almighty face to face he will resemble a beetle (or a star) and not Dr. Carey [the archbishop of Canterbury].
Life: beetles, plus extra features which must be justified.
I’d like to suggest the swap of oyster in the place of clam, because oysters are less mobile than clams.
This leads to a funny observation: for some reason I think a worm and an oyster are obviously animals, like if you were a caveman with no notion of genetics or the tree of life and you came across either, I suspect you’d think “this thing is obviously some kind of animal.” But a sponge is not so obvious, I think, to our hypothetical caveman. I could believe a sponge is a weird plant.
I think you need at least one distinguishing feature beyond the minimal to become obviously an animal, for some reason.
Then I saw the videos of them quickly evading predators or just swimming around in general. e.g:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBH3UvlZo90
Clamming was a surprisingly fun way to waste a morning as a kid, it is like playing at the beach with objectives. If you ever happen across somebody with a license, I suggest giving it a try.
The roots of "animal", "fungus", and "plant" are completely arbitrary; anything outside the chosen root can be called a "protist" (many marine "plants" are counted as protists nowadays).
I never read the opinion that beetles were simple in the "MVP" sense of the word. I think they can be quite complex life forms.
It is definitely possible I haven’t thought this out very well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle
Maybe they enjoy it.
I would think the opposite; scorned humans often turn even more violent.
Dude... There are water beetles that live underwater, but do also fly and walk. This is not "mininum viable" in any sense of the term. Just because they have smaller brains and less developed immune systems does not mean that they are millions of years beyond mammals in fantastic specialization!
See this video from Clint's Reptiles for the explanation: https://youtu.be/-aV78eNbdTU?si=DCe3ZUx8C6IKlXJe&t=978
Usually, when we find something like this, the answer is because "taxonomy is more art than science". Like trees or fish. Both exist all over their respective branches of the evolutionary tree. You have fish species that do not have a common ancestor that does not also include "not fish".
Same with trees. Two "trees" can exist in groups with "not trees"
Although, I guess the picture could also be incomplete. It could just be showing the beetle lineage and not anything else that may branch from those branches.
In which case, this could be another case of cancerification. As much as nature loves a crab, it loves to start from a beetle.
It's also how differentiated (and isolated) the habitats themselves became over 100s of millions of years of climate change and plate tectonics.
I suppose that helps with species longevity.
Pratchetts's books are full of that kind of reference.
But then he was talking about the "pinnical" of life and evolution. Ponder thought he meant humans, capable of mastering their world.
Then he looked down and saw the leg twitch...
_________
> The little god's hands twitched. 'I don't know, I do try to diversify, but sometimes it's so difficult...'
> Suddenly he ran across the crowded cave towards a huge pair of doors at the far end, and flung them open. 'I'm sorry, but I just have to do one,' said the god. 'They calm me down, you know.' Ponder caught up. The cave beyond the doors was bigger than this one, and brilliantly lit. The air was full of small, bright things, hovering in their millions like beads on invisible strings.
> 'Beetles?' said Ponder.
> There's nothing like a beetle when you're feeling depressed!' said the god. He'd stopped by a large metal desk and was feverishly opening drawers and pulling out boxes. 'Can you pass me that box of antennae? It's just on the shelf there. Oh yes, you can't beat a beetle when you're feeling down. Sometimes I think it's what it's all about, you know.'
> 'What all?' said Ponder.
> The god swept an arm in an expansive gesture. 'Everything,' he said cheerfully. 'The whole thing. Trees, grass, flowers... What did you think it was all for?'
> 'Well, I didn't think it was for beetles,' said Ponder. 'What about, well, what about the elephant, for a start?'
> The god already had a half-finished beetle in one hand. It was green. 'Dung,' he said triumphantly.
_________
> 'Apes? Oh, very amusing, certainly, and obviously the beetles have to have something to entertain them, but . . .' The god looked at him, and a celestial penny seemed to drop. 'Oh dear, you don't think they're the purpose of the whole business, do you?'
> 'I'd rather assumed—'
> 'Dear me, the purpose of the whole business, you see, is in fact to be the whole business. Although,' he sniffed, 'if we can do it all with beetles I shan't complain.'
> 'But surely the purpose of— I mean, wouldn't it be nice if you ended up with some creature that started to think about the universe—?'
> 'Good gravy, I don't want anything poking around!' said the god testily. 'There's enough patches and stitches in it as it is without some clever devil trying to find more, I can assure you. No, the gods on the mainland have got that right at least. Intelligence is like legs – too many and you trip yourself up. Six is about the right number, in my view.'
* And in that moment he knew that, despite the apparent beetle fixation, here was where he’d always wanted to be, at the cutting edge of the envelope in the fast lane of the state of the art.
They are small, hard and easy to manipulate and keep dry. A big collection fits in any room and they have an entertaining endless diversity of forms and colours, so primates like to collect them.
Don't believe me? How many roundworm or fly species do we know? How many we don't know still?
Because beetles are randy little buggers... yeah, baby. [0]
(It also helps when both your size and food source(s) let you survive extinction events easier than those silly mega- fauna/flora)
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=beetle+mating&tbm=isch
When you transcend the physical form into a body of energy (hint: OR=constructive, XOR=deconstructive, NOT=XOR(k,1), NOT( OR(j,k) )=NOR(j,k), NOR=Functionally Complete, ergo EMF or even sound can be Turing Complete), then as an energy body you may want to interact with physical forms again w/o ionizing them; So you'll create (sentient) machinations that can do tasks. Because your design parameters include survivability across large thermal and pressure gradients you'll [re]discover giant robotic beetle design.
If you'll excuse me, I've got to tend a Kephri (beetle of remanifestation) who is eagerly attempting to choose an Odin to ride this 6-legged "Steed" next Ragnorok.