"Favorite Color: Beetle Gold Green.You know that metallic green-gold color those beetles get? Yeah, that. :3"
—Zephronias
I maintain the same childlike sense of wonder I had when I was a teeny weeny wertperch. I have memories of five-year-old me lying on my tummy in a sunlit garden watching all the soil life, overturning bits of bark to expose the woodlice, and chasing butterflies around the garden. But the thing I remember most of all was the delight I had, and still have, discovering almost any beetle. From the black "rain beetle" through bright ladybirds to the iridescent beetles in the flowers, all were fascinating to me. The sole exception to my own love of beetles is the June bug, a bastard blind-flying evening missile I lump in with moths in my peculiar phobia of night-time flying insects.
For every three other living creatures, there is a beetle. African elephant, slow loris, domestic cat, beetle; killer hornet, three-toed sloth, homo sapiens, another beetle. There are more than 400,000 known species of beetles. Almost 40% of all known insects are beetles, and 25% of all known species of everything are beetles. Doubtless there are yet more to be discovered. It's little wonder that J. B. S. Haldane supposedly once came up with the line quoted in the title. I say "supposedly" because like so many alleged quotations, it may just be apocryphal or misquoted. As my source¹ tells it:
"…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.'"
Whether or not he said those exact words, it is certainly an echo of something he wrote in his book
What is Life?, where he says, "The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other…".
So enough of quotations and numbers. Why do beetles fascinate me (and whichever putative god created them)? Well for one thing they are ubiquitous, like ants, but then there's their diversity. They range from the dull scarab to the bright Tiger beetle through the gigantic Goliath beetle at 18 cm (7 inches) to the tiny feathering beetle Scydosella musawasensis which is a mere 0.38 mm long (a mere 0.0133 of an inch). They may have horns to do battle, as does the Rhinoceros beetle.
I am not alone in my love of beetles. "In ancient Egypt, the Scarab Beetle was a highly significant symbolic representation of the divine manifestation of the morning sun."—Wikipedia. For them, the humble working of the dung beetle, pushing its ball of dung (food for its offspring) was reminiscent of the rising sun, and scarab jewellery and ornamentation can be found everywhere in their culture.
Beetles are doing amazing work still, from breaking down organic matter to pollinating flowers, and delighting children of all ages with their fascinating beauty (Man, those colours!!). Ladybird larvae eat insects that cause damage to our food plants. Hats off to the humble beetle (excepting the awful June bug)!
For
Zephronias, because beetle green is her favourite colour. Aso for you,
darling Dryad, because
I see the same wonder in you still.
¹Source of my quotation material
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