British Insects: the Families of Coleoptera
British Insects: the Families of Coleoptera |
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This data set is generated from a DELTA database (Dallwitz 1980; Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher 1993). It forms part of the ‘British Insects’ suite of packages, which was originally intended to present scans of the fine hand-coloured engravings of insects in John Curtis’s British Entomology: illustrations and descriptions of the genera of insects found in Great Britain and Ireland (1824–1840), of which Volumes 1–12 volumes of the first edition are available to us. For further information on this remarkable work, see Notes on John Curtis’s British Entomology. The Curtis illustrations have subsequently been supplemented from other sources listed in the References, but in the present instance we are especially indebted to Martin Halley (http://www.restoredprints.com) for painstakingly photographing for us the plates and text from the 1836-1840 issues dealing with Coleoptera.
In addition to presenting Curtis’s and other early illustrations, all the ‘British Insects’ subsets incorporate descriptive data organized under the DELTA system, and purport to offer facilities for attempting at least partial identification and for information retrieval, via the interactive program Intkey. The present one encompasses all the families of British Coleoptera, described via standard morphological and ecological characters and extensively illustrated. It is unlikely to achieve its taxonomic objectives satisfactorily at this early stage of development, but in any case the DELTA data (from which updates of the interactive package are easily generated) are readily accessible for improving, correcting and extending. Input from interested entomologists is of course encouraged in this connection.
Family descriptions for Coleoptera were compiled from Unwin’s (1984) key to the British families, and Britton’s (1970) detailed taxonomic descriptions; then greatly improved and extended using Lawrence et al.’s (1999) Intkey package, Beetles of the World. The Strepsiptera, which are generally considered close to the Coleoptera, have here been included as a single taxon which is omitted from the routine identificatory component (although images representing all three British families are presented).
To provide illustrations in the absence of the final two volumes of Curtis, we originally resorted to scans from Janson’s (1863: black-and-white) transcriptions; and by including additional illustrations from Rye and Fowler (1890), we were able to exemplify most of the British beetle families with at least one picture. However, the coverage is now much improved via the plates from volumes 2-6 of Fowler’s impressive Coleoptera of the British Islands (1888-1913). Adapting them has involved laborious re-touching of the scans obtained from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, as well as an effort at comprehensively updating the legends.
Attempts at updating Curtis’s and Fowler’s nomenclature for Coleoptera (see Updated insect names for John Curtis’s British Entomology and for Fowler’s Coleoptera of the British Islands) have been conducted principally with reference to Pope’s (1977) update of the Coleoptera component of the Kloet and Hincks Check List, but also necessitated cross referencing with the 1945 original, with Janson’s (1863) interpretations of Curtis, with Joy’s Practical Handbook (1932), and more recently with Internet sources. The interactive Fauna Europaea check list is especially useful in this connection, although it is as yet incomplete for such problem groups as the Staphylinidae. It is obviously impracticable in the present context to keep abreast of nomenclatural recombinations, generation of which continues apace; for example, the 2008 Check List now available at available at The Coleopterist has yet to be consulted in the present context. We hope, however, that the recently applied names given with the fine Curtis and Fowler illustrations in this package might encourage their use in connection with modern texts.
The Curtis and Fowler plates are cited in the Intkey displays of taxon images, where they are accompanied by scans of the original legends, and in the case of Curtis by his full text. The latter offers numerous examples of his entertaining, informative and elegantly expressed notes on sources of specimens, morphological interpretations, classificatory methodology, general biology, etc.; see, for example, the accounts of Emus hirtus in the Staphylinidae (B. Ent. 534), of Trox sabulosus in the Trogidae (B. Ent. 574), and of Blaps lethifera in the Tenebrionidae (B. Ent. 148).
Family assignments of the Coleoptera illustrated have been checked at that level, in effect with reference to the family descriptions in works cited in the References, by ‘identifying’ illustrations using the present Intkey package and that of Lawrence et al. (1999). Checking on the generic and specific identities of the insects depicted has of course so far been very limited, and expert input would be welcomed. Meanwhile, persons wishing to use the pictures for their own purposes should take the necessary precautions for themselves.