College: CMR National PU College, ITPL, Bengaluru

Sample: Beetle

Site of sample collection: CMR National PU College, ITPL

Date of Collection: 19 February 2019

Date of Observation: 19 February 2019

Students involved: Gopika Anil, Shwetha Santhosh and Ramya Nambiar

Kingdom: Animalia ,
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera

Description:-

With more than a million species, which greatly vary from each other in taxonomic relatedness, size and ecology, the beetle is the largest group of insects.

The crustaceans possess hard armor-like exoskeletons that weighs the creatures down. But, instead, the exoskeletons are surprisingly light – even allowing the armor-wearing insects like the beetle, to fly.

Viewing the exoskeleton of the Cotinis mutabilis , a field crop pest beetle, under the foldscope showed it’s composition distinctly. It’s exoskeleton is composed of twisted plywood structures, known as Bouligand structures, which help protect against predators. Fibers in this Bouligand structure are bundles of chitin polymer chains wrapped with proteins. These fibers have a diameter of just 20 nanometers.

Exoskeletons of beetles and their associated morphological characteristics, can serve many different functions, including thermoregulation. The beetle skeleton acts differentially across the electromagnetic spectrum determining internal body temperatures.