Beetles belong to the taxonomic order Coleoptera, which comes from the Greek word koleopterus meaning 'sheath-winged'. Sometimes it's easy to forget that beetles have wings but they do and, for the vast majority, they are fully functional giving some species the ability to fly considerable distances. They are hidden behind hardened outer cases or, to give them their proper name, elytra, which are actually evolutionary modified forewings. It's the hindwings that are used for flying, which the insect deploys after the elytra are opened. The elytra also protect the beetle's soft abdomen giving them an armoured covering against any would-be predators and the ability to live in tough habitats, such as under rocks, in the ground or old wood, or even in water.

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There's a great deal of variety in terms of size, general appearance, shape and form, colour and lifestyle, which is why the 4,200 or so British beetle species are placed in just over a hundred families, which in turn are split into various superfamilies within two distinct suborders, Adephaga and Polyphaga.

  

The Adephaga includes the water beetles and carabid ground beetles and, although I'd like to expand my current list of carabids, most of my interest is with the remaining terrestrial beetle families in the much larger Polyphaga division.

 

I have no idea how far my journey will take me, but given that I only started photographing insects in 2020, I'm pretty pleased with the number of beetle species that I've been able to record. Yes, there are some big gaps and there are many families that aren't yet represented - although, in that respect, it's worth noting that over a third of the 102 listed families are small with five or less species - but it's a good start. it will be interesting to see how the list grows, because I expect, as with all insect groups, that the truly common species can be found relatively easily if you're in a suitable location at the right time of year, but adding additional, not so common species will require a more targeted approach.

 

In the meantime, I'm happy to feature around 150 species in a format that works much the same as other collections in that clicking any of the following thumbnail images will take you to a 'family account' page that includes a bit of basic information and photos of the associated species. The details generally relate to the family as a whole but, for some species, there are extra notes with features to assist identification. Larger families may be broken down into manageable smaller collections. The list will be regularly updated, although larger updates with new species will generally take place out of season as I don't want to be sitting behind a computer when I could be out with the camera. The date of the latest update is shown at the bottom of the page.