Get the latest tech news
Why are there so many beetle species?
Diet played a key role in the evolution of the vast beetle family tree
The insects’ ability to fold their flight wings, origami-like, under protective forewings called elytra allows beetles to squeeze into rocky crevices and burrow inside trees. But the explosion in their variety and number — shown here at the level of beetle families — coincides with the rapid diversification of flowering plants during the Cretaceous period (green column) some 145 million years ago. When Salem and his team have experimentally removed the microbe caplets from developing larvae, the adult, germ-free beetles that emerge have a high mortality rate because they can’t access pectin in the plant cell.
Or read this on Hacker News