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Coleopteran, (order Coleoptera), any member of the insect order Coleoptera, consisting of the beetles and weevils. It is the largest order of insects, representing about 40 percent of the known insect species. Among the over 360,000 species of Coleoptera are many of the largest and most conspicuous.
Coleoptera is the largest order in the animal kingdom. It includes 40% of all insects and nearly 30% of all animal species. The smallest beetle is the fringed ant beetle, Nanosella fungi (family Ptiliidae).
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (/ koʊliːˈɒptərə /), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects.
The Coleoptera (beetles) is the largest single order of insects. So far, there are thought to be more than 400,000 beetle species described by science. It is thought that 25% of all animal species on Earth are beetles.
Greek 'sheath wing'; Aristotle already called beetles 'koleopteros' (κολεοπτερος) to refer to the hardened front wings. The largest order in the animal kingdom, with close to 400,000 described species in almost 30,000 genera of >200 families worldwide (6)(7), or ~40% of known insects.
Beetles (Order Coleoptera) are known to include some 350,000 described species. In the United States, there are nearly 30,000 kinds of beetles known. These figures are rising constantly due to the naming of new species by taxonomists.
More than 200 families of extant and extinct beetles are known. Although there are different classifications of Coleoptera, modern systems are based on the four suborders Adephaga, Archostemata, Myxophaga, and Polyphaga.