A megadiverse beetle fauna showing an inordinate fondness for Tasmanian forests

摘要

We have probably all heard of J.B.S. Haldane's quip that 'the Creator, if He exists, must have an inordinate fondness for beetles'. A range of variant utterances on this same theme by Haldane, a pioneering evolutionary biologist, speak to his sense of wonder at the sheer diversity of beetle life on Earth. Haldane was well aware that beetle species outnumber, for instance, bird species by upwards of two orders of magnitude.