187-601: The Malay Archipelago is a book by the English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia , Singapore , the islands of Indonesia , then known as the Dutch East Indies , and the island of New Guinea . It was published in two volumes in 1869, delayed by Wallace's ill health and
374-549: A species sketch of his continuing work in May 1856. By February 1858, Wallace had been convinced by his biogeographical research in the Malay Archipelago that evolution was real. He later wrote in his autobiography that the problem was of how species change from one well-marked form to another. He stated that it was while he was in bed with a fever that he thought about Malthus's idea of positive checks on human population, and had
561-421: A "surprisingly narrow range" spanning all four estimates from a minimum of 0.9 to a maximum of 2.1 million beetle species. The four estimates made use of host-specificity relationships (1.5 to 1.9 million), ratios with other taxa (0.9 to 1.2 million), plant:beetle ratios (1.2 to 1.3), and extrapolations based on body size by year of description (1.7 to 2.1 million). This immense diversity led
748-616: A Malay named Ali as a general servant and cook, and spent the early 1855 wet season in a small Dyak house at the foot of Mount Santubong , overlooking a branch outlet of the Sarawak River . He read about species distribution, notes on Pictets 's Palaeontology, and wrote his "Sarawak Paper". In March he moved to the Simunjon coal-works, operated by the Borneo Company under Ludvig Verner Helms , and supplemented collecting by paying workers
935-448: A beetle is quite uniform, although specific organs and appendages vary greatly in appearance and function between the many families in the order. Like all insects, beetles' bodies are divided into three sections: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. Because there are so many species, identification is quite difficult, and relies on attributes including the shape of the antennae, the tarsal formulae and shapes of these small segments on
1122-475: A beetle's environment. Beetle families may use antennae in different ways. For example, when moving quickly, tiger beetles may not be able to see very well and instead hold their antennae rigidly in front of them in order to avoid obstacles. Certain Cerambycidae use antennae to balance, and blister beetles may use them for grasping. Some aquatic beetle species may use antennae for gathering air and passing it under
1309-447: A bird-skinner. With Ali as cook, they collected for two days on Bali , then from 17 June to 30 August on Lombok . In December 1856, Darwin had written to contacts worldwide to get specimens for his continuing research into variation under domestication . At Lombok's port city, Ampanam , Wallace wrote telling his agent, Stevens, about specimens shipped, including a domestic duck variety "for Mr. Darwin & he would perhaps also like
1496-485: A cent for each insect. A specimen of the previously unknown gliding tree frog Rhacophorus nigropalmatus (now called Wallace's flying frog ) came from a Chinese workman who told Wallace that it glided down. Local people also assisted with shooting orangutans . They spent time with Sir James, then in February 1856 Allen chose to stay on with the missionaries at Kuching. On reaching Singapore in May 1856, Wallace hired
1683-530: A closely allied species" has come to be known as the "Sarawak Law", answering his own question in his paper on the monkeys of the Amazon basin. Although it does not mention possible mechanisms for evolution, this paper foreshadowed the momentous paper he would write three years later. The paper challenged Lyell's belief that species were immutable. Although Darwin had written to him in 1842 expressing support for transmutation, Lyell had continued to be strongly opposed to
1870-493: A dozen people before meeting their own death. Radau returns to food, describing sago and the breadfruit tree. The breadfruit tastes like Yorkshire pudding or mashed potato; with meat it is the best of vegetables; with sugar, milk, butter or molasses, it is a delicious pudding with a special flavour; Radau hopes that perhaps it will one day be found in European markets. As for the sago palm, one tree yields 1,800 cakes, enough to feed
2057-665: A famous letter from Wallace, sent during the period covered by The Malay Archipelago while he was staying in Ternate , which described the theory of evolution by natural selection in outline.) Wallace and Bates had been inspired by reading the American entomologist William Henry Edwards 's pioneering 1847 book A Voyage Up the River Amazon, with a residency at Pará . Bates stayed in the Amazons for 11 years, going on to write The Naturalist on
SECTION 10
#17328453925082244-744: A few fossils from North America before the middle Permian , although both Asia and North America had been united to Euramerica . The first discoveries from North America made in the Wellington Formation of Oklahoma were published in 2005 and 2008. The earliest members of modern beetle lineages appeared during the Late Permian . In the Permian–Triassic extinction event at the end of the Permian, most "protocoleopteran" lineages became extinct. Beetle diversity did not recover to pre-extinction levels until
2431-550: A few notes and pencil sketches, but little else. Wallace and the crew spent ten days in an open boat before being picked up by the brig Jordeson , which was sailing from Cuba to London. The Jordeson 's provisions were strained by the unexpected passengers, but after a difficult passage on short rations, the ship reached its destination on 1 October 1852. The lost collection had been insured for £200 by Stevens. After his return to Britain, Wallace spent 18 months in London living on
2618-448: A highly valuable and intensely interesting contribution to our knowledge of a part of the world but little known in Europe or America. But few of our tourists ever visit it, and scarcely any have ever gone to explore it. Mr. Wallace is not an amateur traveler, making a hasty visit, to return and write a hasty and almost useless book. He is an enthusiastic naturalist, a geographer, and geologist,
2805-472: A keener interest" in the "great man-like ape of Borneo,—the orang-utan, or mias , as it is called by the aborigines". Two pages are taken up with a discussion of the orang utan. The review then turns to Wallace's observations on "the races of man" in the book, observing that the anthropological details given are useful but perhaps chosen to support "a particular theory", namely Wallace's belief that there were eastern and western races—"Malays" and "Papuans", though
2992-615: A land surveyor in the countryside of the west of England and Wales. The natural history of his surroundings aroused his interest; from 1841 he collected flowers and plants as an amateur botanist . One result of Wallace's early travels is a modern controversy about his nationality. Since he was born in Monmouthshire , some sources have considered him to be Welsh. Other historians have questioned this because neither of his parents were Welsh, his family only briefly lived in Monmouthshire,
3179-700: A lengthy review of Un naturaliste dans l'Archipel Malais in the French Revue des Deux Mondes . Radau notes the many deaths from volcanic eruptions in the archipelago, before explaining the similarity of the fauna of Java and Sumatra with that of central Asia, while that of the Celebes carries the mark of Australia, seeming to be the last representatives of another age. Radau describes Wallace's experiences in Singapore, where goods were far cheaper than in Europe – wire, knives, corkscrews, gunpowder, writing-paper, and he remarks on
3366-441: A light-emitting organ for mating and communication purposes. Beetles typically have a particularly hard exoskeleton including the elytra , though some such as the rove beetles have very short elytra while blister beetles have softer elytra. The general anatomy of a beetle is quite uniform and typical of insects, although there are several examples of novelty, such as adaptations in water beetles which trap air bubbles under
3553-523: A man for a year. There is torrential rain; there are savages; there are dangerous trips in small boats. Only in the final paragraph does Radau reflect on it all: "We have tried, in this study on Wallace's two volumes, to give an idea of what he saw in his eight-year stay in the Far East." He admits he has left out most of the natural history, and regrets not having space for more "charming pages" which would have taken him too far. He joins Wallace in reflecting on
3740-406: A mass of at least 115 g (4.1 oz) and a length of 11.5 cm (4.5 in). Adult male goliath beetles are the heaviest beetle in its adult stage, weighing 70–100 g (2.5–3.5 oz) and measuring up to 11 cm (4.3 in). Adult elephant beetles , Megasoma elephas and Megasoma actaeon often reach 50 g (1.8 oz) and 10 cm (3.9 in). The longest beetle
3927-456: A mobile tooth on their left mandible. The consistency of beetle morphology , in particular their possession of elytra , has long suggested that Coleoptera is monophyletic , though there have been doubts about the arrangement of the suborders , namely the Adephaga , Archostemata , Myxophaga and Polyphaga within that clade . The twisted-wing parasites, Strepsiptera , are thought to be
SECTION 20
#17328453925084114-612: A more highly civilised society". The review ends with some reflections of surprise on how little-known the Malay Archipelago is in India, given that they were closely connected with Hindu temples in Java and Bali , and hopes that soon there will be some "productions" of the archipelago in the Indian Museum of Calcutta . The book's fame spread beyond the English-speaking world. R. Radau wrote
4301-519: A number of scholars. Shipping schedules show that, contrary to these accusations, Wallace's letter could not have been delivered earlier than the date shown in Darwin's letter to Lyell. After Wallace returned to England in 1862, he became one of the staunchest defenders of Darwin's On the Origin of Species . In an incident in 1863 that particularly pleased Darwin, Wallace published the short paper "Remarks on
4488-484: A particularly hard exoskeleton and hard forewings ( elytra ) not usable for flying. Almost all beetles have mandibles that move in a horizontal plane. The mouthparts are rarely suctorial, though they are sometimes reduced; the maxillae always bear palps. The antennae usually have 11 or fewer segments, except in some groups like the Cerambycidae (longhorn beetles) and the Rhipiceridae (cicada parasite beetles). The coxae of
4675-479: A piece of literature. In 1847, Wallace and his friend Henry Walter Bates , both in their early twenties, agreed that they would jointly make a collecting trip to the Amazon "towards solving the problem of origin of species". ( Charles Darwin 's book on the Origin of Species was not published until 11 years later, in 1859. It was based on Darwin's own long collecting trip on HMS Beagle , its publication precipitated by
4862-478: A scientific man he follows Darwin" the review finds "his theories sometimes need as many grains of salt as his specimens." But the review then agrees that the book will "make the world wiser about its more solitary and singular children, hid away over the seas", and opines that no-one will mind paying the price of the book to read about the birds of paradise, "those bird-angels, with flaming wings of crimson and gold and scarlet, who twitter and gambol and make merry among
5049-574: A short time Wallace was unemployed, then early in 1844 he was engaged by the Collegiate School in Leicester to teach drawing, mapmaking, and surveying. He had already read George Combe 's The Constitution of Man , and after Spencer Hall lectured on mesmerism , Wallace as well as some of the older pupils tried it out. Wallace spent many hours at the town library in Leicester; he read An Essay on
5236-678: A sister group to the beetles, having split from them in the Early Permian . Molecular phylogenetic analysis confirms that the Coleoptera are monophyletic. Duane McKenna et al. (2015) used eight nuclear genes for 367 species from 172 of 183 Coleopteran families. They split the Adephaga into 2 clades, Hydradephaga and Geadephaga, broke up the Cucujoidea into 3 clades, and placed the Lymexyloidea within
5423-408: A string of beads , comb-like (either on one side or both, bipectinate), or toothed . The physical variation of antennae is important for the identification of many beetle groups. The Curculionidae have elbowed or geniculate antennae. Feather like flabellate antennae are a restricted form found in the Rhipiceridae and a few other families. The Silphidae have a capitate antennae with a spherical head at
5610-411: A student of man and nature. The reviewer notes the region is "of terrific grandeur, parts of it being perpetually illuminated by discharging volcanoes, and all of it frequently shaken with earthquakes." The review summarises the book's geographical reach and style in a paragraph. The Popular Science Review began by writing that "We never remember to have taken up a book which gave us more pleasure". It
5797-467: A way that natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridisation . Wallace's 1904 book Man's Place in the Universe was the first serious attempt by a biologist to evaluate the likelihood of life on other planets . He was one of the first scientists to write a serious exploration of whether there was life on Mars . Aside from scientific work, he
The Malay Archipelago - Misplaced Pages Continue
5984-778: A wide interval of country?" In February 1855, while working in Sarawak on the island of Borneo , Wallace wrote "On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species". The paper was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History in September 1855. In this paper, he discussed observations of the geographic and geologic distribution of both living and fossil species, a field that became biogeography. His conclusion that "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with
6171-519: A young woman whom, in his autobiography, he would only identify as Miss L. Miss L. was the daughter of Lewis Leslie who played chess with Wallace, but to Wallace's great dismay, she broke off the engagement. In 1866, Wallace married Annie Mitten. Wallace had been introduced to Mitten through the botanist Richard Spruce, who had befriended Wallace in Brazil and who was a friend of Annie Mitten's father, William Mitten , an expert on mosses. In 1872, Wallace built
6358-487: Is "capable of great insights" in the Malay Archipelago . Travelling over 14,000 miles and collecting 125,000 specimens, he also made "scrupulous notes" for the book which subtly combines wildlife descriptions, geological musings and tales about the villagers, merchants and sultans he encountered on his travels through the East Indies. In McKie's view, Wallace was a gifted writer with "an eye for catchy observation", and this
6545-457: Is a Victorian Englishman abroad with all the self-assurance but without the lordly superiority of the coloniser; he is the chronicler of wonders who refuses to exaggerate, or to believe anybody else's improbable marvels: what he can see and examine (and, very often, shoot) is wonder enough for him. Radford finds "delights on every page", such as the Wallace line between the islands of Bali and Lombok;
6732-546: Is an overview of the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural divisions among the people who live in the region and speculation about what such divisions might indicate about their history. The Malay Archipelago was largely written at Treeps, Wallace's wife's family home in Hurstpierpoint , West Sussex . It was first published in Spring 1869 in two volumes by Macmillan (London), with a reprint (also in two volumes) marked 'second edition'
6919-484: Is as agricultural, forestry, and horticultural pests . Serious pest species include the boll weevil of cotton, the Colorado potato beetle , the coconut hispine beetle , the mountain pine beetle , and many others. Most beetles, however, do not cause economic damage and some, such as numerous species of lady beetles , are beneficial by helping to control insect pests. The name of the taxonomic order, Coleoptera, comes from
7106-412: Is dedicated to Charles Darwin , but as Wallace explains in the preface, he has chosen to avoid discussing the evolutionary implications of his discoveries. Instead he confines himself to the "interesting facts of the problem, whose solution is to be found in the principles developed by Mr. Darwin", so from a scientific point of view, the book is largely a descriptive natural history . This modesty belies
7293-438: Is found, from trees and their bark to flowers, leaves, and underground near roots - even inside plants in galls, in every plant tissue, including dead or decaying ones. Tropical forest canopies have a large and diverse fauna of beetles, including Carabidae , Chrysomelidae , and Scarabaeidae . The heaviest beetle, indeed the heaviest insect stage, is the larva of the goliath beetle , Goliathus goliatus , which can attain
7480-600: Is one of the finest of travel books. McKie liked the account of Wallace's night sleeping "'with half-a-dozen smoke-dried human skulls suspended over my head'". The researcher Charles Smith rates the Malay Archipelago as "Wallace's most successful work, literarily and commercially", placing it second only to his Darwinism (1889) among his books for academic citations. The Malay Archipelago influenced many works starting with those of Wallace's contemporaries. The novelist Joseph Conrad used it as source material for some of his novels, including Almayer's Folly , An Outcast of
7667-543: Is the Hercules beetle Dynastes hercules , with a maximum overall length of at least 16.7 cm (6.6 in) including the very long pronotal horn. The smallest recorded beetle and the smallest free-living insect (as of 2015 ), is the featherwing beetle Scydosella musawasensis which may measure as little as 325 μm in length. The oldest known beetle is Coleopsis , from the earliest Permian ( Asselian ) of Germany, around 295 million years ago. Early beetles from
The Malay Archipelago - Misplaced Pages Continue
7854-404: Is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal species; new species are discovered frequently, with estimates suggesting that there are between 0.9 and 2.1 million total species. However, the number of beetle species is challenged by the number of species in dipterans (flies) and hymenopterans (wasps). Found in almost every habitat except
8041-437: Is the largest suborder, containing more than 300,000 described species in more than 170 families, including rove beetles (Staphylinidae), scarab beetles ( Scarabaeidae ), blister beetles (Meloidae), stag beetles (Lucanidae) and true weevils ( Curculionidae ). These polyphagan beetle groups can be identified by the presence of cervical sclerites (hardened parts of the head used as points of attachment for muscles) absent in
8228-634: The Cambridge University Museum of Zoology , and described as of exceptional historical significance. In 1862, Wallace returned to Britain, where he moved in with his sister Fanny Sims and her husband Thomas. While recovering from his travels, Wallace organised his collections and gave numerous lectures about his adventures and discoveries to scientific societies such as the Zoological Society of London . Later that year, he visited Darwin at Down House , and became friendly with both Lyell and
8415-521: The Greek koleopteros (κολεόπτερος), given to the group by Aristotle for their elytra , hardened shield-like forewings, from koleos , sheath, and pteron , wing. The English name beetle comes from the Old English word bitela , little biter, related to bītan (to bite), leading to Middle English betylle . Another Old English name for beetle is ċeafor , chafer, used in names such as cockchafer , from
8602-640: The Middle Triassic . During the Jurassic ( 210 to 145 mya ), there was a dramatic increase in the diversity of beetle families, including the development and growth of carnivorous and herbivorous species. The Chrysomeloidea diversified around the same time, feeding on a wide array of plant hosts from cycads and conifers to angiosperms . Close to the Upper Jurassic, the Cupedidae decreased, but
8789-552: The Rio Negro , collecting specimens and making notes on the peoples and languages he encountered as well as the geography, flora, and fauna. On 12 July 1852, Wallace embarked for the UK on the brig Helen . After 25 days at sea, the ship's cargo caught fire, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. All the specimens Wallace had on the ship, mostly collected during the last, and most interesting, two years of his trip, were lost. He managed to save
8976-696: The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) for support, proposing to again fund his exploring entirely from sale of duplicate collections. He later recalled that, while researching in the insect-room of the British Museum , he was introduced to Darwin and they "had a few minutes' conversation." After presenting a paper and a large map of the Rio Negro to the RGS, Wallace was elected a Fellow of the society on 27 February 1854. Free passage arranged on Royal Navy ships
9163-414: The Wallace line , natural selection and uniformitarianism . Nearly all agreed that he had provided an interesting and comprehensive account of the geography , natural history , and peoples of the archipelago, which little was known about to readers at the time, in addition to the extensive breadth of specimens collected. The book is much cited, and is Wallace's most successful, both commercially and as
9350-520: The Wars of Scottish Independence in the 13th century. Wallace's father graduated in law but never practised it. He owned some income-generating property, but bad investments and failed business ventures resulted in a steady deterioration of the family's financial position. Wallace's mother was from a middle-class family of Hertford , to which place his family moved when Wallace was five years old. He attended Hertford Grammar School until 1837, when he reached
9537-439: The centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities". The cybernetician and anthropologist Gregory Bateson observed in the 1970s that, although writing it only as an example, Wallace had "probably said the most powerful thing that'd been said in the 19th Century". Bateson revisited the topic in his 1979 book Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity , and other scholars have continued to explore
SECTION 50
#17328453925089724-456: The coloration of animals and plants, and proposed alternative explanations for a number of cases Darwin had attributed to sexual selection. He revisited the topic at length in his 1889 book Darwinism . In 1890, he wrote a critical review in Nature of his friend Edward Bagnall Poulton 's The Colours of Animals which supported Darwin on sexual selection, attacking especially Poulton's claims on
9911-485: The jungle cock , which is often domesticated here & is doubtless one of the originals of the domestic breed of poultry." In the same letter, Wallace said birds from Bali and Lombok, divided by a narrow strait, "belong to two quite distinct zoological provinces, of which they form the extreme limits", Java, Borneo, Sumatra and Malacca , and Australia and the Moluccas . Stevens arranged publication of relevant paragraphs in
10098-471: The physical geography and geology of the islands with particular attention to the role of volcanoes and earthquakes. It also discusses the overall pattern of the flora and fauna including the fact that the islands can be divided, by what would eventually become known as the Wallace line , into two parts, those whose animals are more closely related to those of Asia and those whose fauna is closer to that of Australia. The following chapters describe in detail
10285-431: The sacred scarabs of ancient Egypt to beetlewing art and use as pets or fighting insects for entertainment and gambling. Many beetle groups are brightly and attractively colored making them objects of collection and decorative displays. Over 300 species are used as food , mostly as larvae ; species widely consumed include mealworms and rhinoceros beetle larvae. However, the major impact of beetles on human life
10472-415: The telephone-pole beetle . The Archostemata have an exposed plate called the metatrochantin in front of the basal segment or coxa of the hind leg. Myxophaga contains about 65 described species in four families, mostly very small, including Hydroscaphidae and the genus Sphaerius . The myxophagan beetles are small and mostly alga-feeders. Their mouthparts are characteristic in lacking galeae and having
10659-528: The wood engraving blocks by leading artists Thomas Baines , Walter Hood Fitch , John Gerrard Keulemans , E. W. Robinson , Joseph Wolf , and T. W. Wood , according to the List of Illustrations . Wood also illustrated Darwin's The Descent of Man , while Robinson and Wolf both also provided illustrations for The Naturalist on the River Amazons (1863), written by Wallace's friend Henry Walter Bates . one of
10846-415: The "aesthetic preferences of the insect world". Beetle See subgroups of the order Coleoptera Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera ( / k oʊ l iː ˈ ɒ p t ər ə / ), in the superorder Holometabola . Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra , distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 described species,
11033-458: The 19th century, and has never been out of print. It was praised by scientists such as Darwin (to whom the book was dedicated), by Lyell, and by non-scientists such as the novelist Joseph Conrad . Conrad called the book his "favorite bedside companion" and used information from it for several of his novels, especially Lord Jim . A set of 80 bird skeletons Wallace collected in Indonesia are held in
11220-558: The 8th Duke of Argyll's book, The Reign of Law , which aimed to refute natural selection. After an 1870 meeting of the British Science Association , Wallace wrote to Darwin complaining that there were "no opponents left who know anything of natural history, so that there are none of the good discussions we used to have". Historians of science have noted that, while Darwin considered the ideas in Wallace's paper to be essentially
11407-470: The Amazon area, Wallace was more interested in new opportunities in the Malay Archipelago as demonstrated by the travel writings of Ida Laura Pfeiffer , and valuable insect specimens she collected which Stevens sold as her agent. In March 1853 Wallace wrote to Sir James Brooke , Rajah of Sarawak, who was then in London, and who arranged assistance in Sarawak for Wallace. In June Wallace wrote to Murchison at
SECTION 60
#173284539250811594-605: The Celebes", where Wallace describes his host, a Mr. M., who relied on his gun to supply his table with wild pigs, deer, and jungle fowl, while enjoying his own milk, butter, rice, coffee, ducks, palm wine and tobacco. However, the Australian reviewer doubted Wallace's judgement about flavours, given that he praised the Durian fruit, namely that it tastes of custard, cream cheese, onion sauce, brown sherry "and other incongruities", whereas "most Europeans" found it "an abomination". Otherwise,
11781-674: The Cretaceous. The first scarab beetles were not coprophagous but presumably fed on rotting wood with the help of fungus; they are an early example of a mutualistic relationship. There are more than 150 important fossil sites from the Jurassic, the majority in Eastern Europe and North Asia. Outstanding sites include Solnhofen in Upper Bavaria , Germany, Karatau in South Kazakhstan ,
11968-586: The Dell , a house of concrete, on land he leased in Grays in Essex, where he lived until 1876. The Wallaces had three children: Herbert (1867–1874), Violet (1869–1945), and William (1871–1951). In the late 1860s and 1870s, Wallace was very concerned about the financial security of his family. While he was in the Malay Archipelago, the sale of specimens had brought in a considerable amount of money, which had been carefully invested by
12155-612: The Islands , and The Rescue . Commentators have suggested it had a particularly profound influence on Lord Jim , crediting it with among other things the inspiration for the character Stein the entomologist . Conrad's assistant Richard Curle wrote that The Malay Archipelago was Conrad's favourite bedside book; Conrad refers directly to what he calls Alfred Wallace's famous book on the Malay Archipelago in The Secret Agent . In his short story, Neil MacAdam , W. Somerset Maugham has
12342-539: The January 1857 issue of The Zoologist . After further investigation, the zoogeographical boundary eventually became known as the Wallace Line . Ali became Wallace's most trusted assistant, a skilled collector and researcher. Wallace collected and preserved the delicate insect specimens, while most of the birds were collected and prepared by his assistants; of those, Ali collected and prepared around 5000. While exploring
12529-547: The Journal of a scientific traveller, it is second only to Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative'—as a work of general interest, perhaps superior to it." William Jevons, the founder of the Neath institute, was impressed by Wallace and persuaded him to give lectures there on science and engineering. In the autumn of 1846, Wallace and his brother John purchased a cottage near Neath, where they lived with their mother and sister Fanny. Inspired by
12716-517: The Malay archipelago, the Ternate essay was in a private letter. Darwin received the essay on 18 June 1858. Although the essay did not use Darwin's term "natural selection", it did outline the mechanics of an evolutionary divergence of species from similar ones due to environmental pressures. In this sense, it was very similar to the theory that Darwin had worked on for 20 years, but had yet to publish. Darwin sent
12903-741: The Malays, arguing instead that the Polynesians long ago migrated from "some common seat in, or near, the Malay Archipelago". The review ends by stating that despite all these disagreements, it holds Wallace's ethnology in "high estimation". Sir Roderick Murchison , giving a speech at the Royal Geographical Society , felt able to "feel a pride" in Wallace's success, and in the "striking contributions" made to science. He takes interest in "Wallace's line" which he calls "this ingenious speculation", with "the two faunas wonderfully contrasted" either side of
13090-399: The Maluccas, while also adding to what is known of the Malays and Papuans, reprinting his entire description and his engraving of a Papuan. The reviewer remarks that the portrait "would as well suit a Papuan of the south-east coast of New Guinea as any of those whom Mr. Wallace saw", noting however that the southern tribes are more varied in skin colour. The reviewer disagrees with Wallace about
13277-414: The Permian, which are collectively grouped into the " Protocoleoptera " are thought to have been xylophagous (wood eating) and wood boring . Fossils from this time have been found in Siberia and Europe, for instance in the red slate fossil beds of Niedermoschel near Mainz, Germany. Further fossils have been found in Obora, Czech Republic and Tshekarda in the Ural mountains, Russia. However, there are only
13464-752: The Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus , Alexander von Humboldt 's Personal Narrative , Darwin's Journal ( The Voyage of the Beagle ), and Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology . One evening Wallace met the entomologist Henry Bates , who was 19 years old, and had published an 1843 paper on beetles in the journal Zoologist . He befriended Wallace and started him collecting insects. When Wallace's brother William died in March 1845, Wallace left his teaching position to assume control of his brother's firm in Neath, but his brother John and he were unable to make
13651-476: The Proto-Germanic * kebrô ("beetle"; compare German Käfer , Dutch kever , Afrikaans kewer ). Beetles are by far the largest order of insects: the roughly 400,000 species make up about 40% of all insect species so far described, and about 25% of all animal species. A 2015 study provided four independent estimates of the total number of beetle species, giving a mean estimate of some 1.5 million with
13838-656: The Quaternary caused beetles to change their geographic distributions so much that current location gives little clue to the biogeographical history of a species. It is evident that geographic isolation of populations must often have been broken as insects moved under the influence of changing climate, causing mixing of gene pools, rapid evolution, and extinctions, especially in middle latitudes. The very large number of beetle species poses special problems for classification . Some families contain tens of thousands of species, and need to be divided into subfamilies and tribes. Polyphaga
14025-686: The Rev. S. Haughton's Paper on the Bee's Cell, And on the Origin of Species". This rebutted a paper by a professor of geology at the University of Dublin that had sharply criticised Darwin's comments in the Origin on how hexagonal honey bee cells could have evolved through natural selection. An even longer defence was a 1867 article in the Quarterly Journal of Science called "Creation by Law". It reviewed George Campbell ,
14212-456: The River Amazons (1863); however, Wallace, ill with fever, went home in 1852 with thousands of specimens, some for science and some for sale. The ship and his collection were destroyed by fire at sea near the Guianas. Rather than giving up, Wallace wrote about the Amazon in both prose and poetry, and then set sail again, this time for the Malay Archipelago. The preface summarises Wallace's travels,
14399-1997: The Tenebrionoidea. The Polyphaga appear to date from the Triassic. Most extant beetle families appear to have arisen in the Cretaceous. The cladogram is based on McKenna (2015). The number of species in each group (mainly superfamilies) is shown in parentheses, and boldface if over 10,000. English common names are given where possible. Dates of origin of major groups are shown in italics in millions of years ago (mya). Archostemata 160 mya (40) [REDACTED] Myxophaga 220 mya (94) [REDACTED] Hydradephaga (5,560) e.g. Dytiscidae (diving beetles) [REDACTED] Geadephaga ( 35,000 ) e.g. Carabidae (ground beetles) [REDACTED] Scirtoidea (800) + Derodontoidea (29) 200 mya [REDACTED] Staphylinidae 195 mya ( 48,000 , rove beetles) [REDACTED] Scarabaeoidea 145 mya ( 35,000 , scarabs, stag beetles, etc.) [REDACTED] Hydrophiloidea (2,800, water scavenger beetles) [REDACTED] Histeroidea (3,800, clown beetles) [REDACTED] Nosodendridae (70) Dascilloidea (180) [REDACTED] Buprestoidea ( 14,000 , jewel beetles) [REDACTED] Byrrhoidea (400, pill and turtle beetles, etc.) [REDACTED] Elateroidea ( 23,000 , click and soldier beetles, fireflies) [REDACTED] Bostrichoidea (3150, deathwatch, powderpost and skin beetles) [REDACTED] Coccinelloidea (6,000, ladybirds or lady beetles) [REDACTED] Tenebrionoidea 180 mya ( 35,000 , leaf/flower beetles, etc.) and Lymexyloidea [REDACTED] Cleroidea (9,900, checkered beetles and allies) [REDACTED] Cucujoidea (8,000) [REDACTED] Chrysomelidae ( 35,000 , leaf beetles) [REDACTED] Cerambycidae ( 25,000 , longhorn beetles) [REDACTED] Curculionoidea ( 97,000 , weevils) [REDACTED] Beetles are generally characterized by
14586-726: The Upper Cretaceous include Kzyl-Dzhar in South Kazakhstan and Arkagala in Russia. Beetle fossils are abundant in the Cenozoic; by the Quaternary (up to 1.6 mya), fossil species are identical to living ones, while from the Late Miocene (5.7 mya) the fossils are still so close to modern forms that they are most likely the ancestors of living species. The large oscillations in climate during
14773-433: The Wallace line in some detail. The review ends by placing the Malay Archipelago between Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology and Darwin's Origin of Species . The American Quarterly Church Review admires Wallace's bravery in going alone among the "barbarous races" in a "villainous climate" with all the hardships of travel, and his hard work in skinning, stuffing, drying and bottling so many specimens. Since "As
14960-507: The Welsh people Wallace knew in his childhood considered him to be English, and because he consistently referred to himself as English rather than Welsh. One Wallace scholar has stated that the most reasonable interpretation is therefore that he was an Englishman born in Wales. In 1843 Wallace's father died, and a decline in demand for surveying meant William's business no longer had work available. For
15147-763: The Yixian formation in Liaoning , North China, as well as the Jiulongshan formation and further fossil sites in Mongolia . In North America there are only a few sites with fossil records of insects from the Jurassic, namely the shell limestone deposits in the Hartford basin, the Deerfield basin and the Newark basin. The Cretaceous saw the fragmenting of the southern landmass, with the opening of
15334-402: The accuracy and discriminating sagacity of an accomplished naturalist", and explains that the "great charm" of the book is "a truthful simplicity" which inspires confidence. The Calcutta Review starts by noting that this is a book that cannot be done justice in a brief notice, that Wallace is a most eminent naturalist, and chiefly known as a Darwinian; the book was the most interesting to cross
15521-468: The age of 14, the normal leaving age for a pupil not going on to university. Wallace then moved to London to board with his older brother John, a 19-year-old apprentice builder. This was a stopgap measure until William, his oldest brother, was ready to take him on as an apprentice surveyor . While in London, Alfred attended lectures and read books at the London Mechanics Institute . Here he
15708-563: The agent who sold the specimens for Wallace. On his return to the UK, Wallace made a series of bad investments in railways and mines that squandered most of the money, and he found himself badly in need of the proceeds from the publication of The Malay Archipelago . Despite assistance from his friends, he was never able to secure a permanent salaried position such as a curatorship in a museum. To remain financially solvent, Wallace worked grading government examinations, wrote 25 papers for publication between 1872 and 1876 for various modest sums, and
15895-456: The aquatic whirligig beetles ( Gyrinidae ), where they are split to allow a view both above and below the waterline. A few Longhorn beetles ( Cerambycidae ) and weevils as well as some fireflies ( Rhagophthalmidae ) have divided eyes, while many have eyes that are notched, and a few have ocelli , small, simple eyes usually farther back on the head (on the vertex ); these are more common in larvae than in adults. The anatomical organization of
16082-434: The archipelago, Wallace refined his thoughts about evolution, and had his famous insight on natural selection . In 1858 he sent an article outlining his theory to Darwin; it was published, along with a description of Darwin's theory, that same year. Accounts of Wallace's studies and adventures were eventually published in 1869 as The Malay Archipelago . This became one of the most popular books of scientific exploration of
16269-541: The author of that great book on the 'Malay Archipelago'." ( Vol.1 , Vol.2 ) Some of Wallace's friends suggested that he be buried in Westminster Abbey , but his wife followed his wishes and had him buried in the small cemetery at Broadstone, Dorset . Several prominent British scientists formed a committee to have a medallion of Wallace placed in Westminster Abbey near where Darwin had been buried. The medallion
16456-447: The back part of the thorax is concealed by the beetle's wings . This further segmentation is usually best seen on the abdomen. The multisegmented legs end in two to five small segments called tarsi. Like many other insect orders, beetles have claws, usually one pair, on the end of the last tarsal segment of each leg. While most beetles use their legs for walking, legs have been variously adapted for other uses. Aquatic beetles including
16643-631: The bark of trees together with the jewel beetles (Buprestidae). The diversity of jewel beetles increased rapidly, as they were the primary consumers of wood, while longhorn beetles ( Cerambycidae ) were rather rare: their diversity increased only towards the end of the Upper Cretaceous. The first coprophagous beetles are from the Upper Cretaceous and may have lived on the excrement of herbivorous dinosaurs. The first species where both larvae and adults are adapted to an aquatic lifestyle are found. Whirligig beetles (Gyrinidae) were moderately diverse, although other early beetles (e.g. Dytiscidae) were less, with
16830-433: The body whilst submerged. Equally, some families use antennae during mating, and a few species use them for defense. In the cerambycid Onychocerus albitarsis , the antennae have venom injecting structures used in defense, which is unique among arthropods . Antennae vary greatly in form, sometimes between the sexes, but are often similar within any given family. Antennae may be clubbed , threadlike , angled , shaped like
17017-462: The book after another: the orang utans of Borneo wrestling open the jaws of a crocodile, or killing a python; the Timorese walking up tall trees, leaning back on ropes as they pull themselves upwards; the indescribable taste of a durian fruit, at once recalling custard, almond paste , roasted onions, sherry and a host of other things, that melts on the tongue, that one does not want to stop eating; more,
17204-502: The boundary between them was east of the Wallace line. The review accepts Wallace's data on natural history, but suspects he was selective in recording details of individuals. It notes that Wallace agreed with French authors that the Polynesians (included in his Papuans) "had a local origin". The review remarks that "Mr Wallace relies more on the diversity of moral features to prove differences of race than on physical peculiarities, although he declares that these are strongly marked" and doubts
17391-488: The business work. After a few months, he found work as a civil engineer for a nearby firm that was working on a survey for a proposed railway in the Vale of Neath . Wallace's work on the survey was largely outdoors in the countryside, allowing him to indulge his new passion for collecting insects. Wallace persuaded his brother John to join him in starting another architecture and civil engineering firm. It carried out projects including
17578-458: The case of animals also; and as animals usually breed much more quickly than does mankind, the destruction every year from these causes must be enormous to keep down the numbers of each species, since evidently they do not increase regularly from year to year, as otherwise the world would long ago have been crowded with those that breed most quickly. Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask
17765-498: The chronicles of earlier and contemporary travelling naturalists, Wallace decided to travel abroad. He later wrote that Darwin's Journal and Humboldt's Personal Narrative were "the two works to whose inspiration I owe my determination to visit the tropics as a collector." After reading A voyage up the river Amazon, by William Henry Edwards , Wallace and Bates estimated that by collecting and selling natural history specimens such as birds and insects they could meet their costs, with
17952-543: The compound eyes may be modified and depends on whether a species is primarily crepuscular, or diurnally or nocturnally active. Ocelli are found in the adult carpet beetle (as a single central ocellus in Dermestidae ), some rove beetles ( Omaliinae ), and the Derodontidae . Beetle antennae are primarily organs of sensory perception and can detect motion, odor and chemical substances, but may also be used to physically feel
18139-523: The connection between natural selection and systems theory . Warning coloration was one of Wallace's contributions to the evolutionary biology of animal coloration . In 1867, Darwin wrote to Wallace about a problem in explaining how some caterpillars could have evolved conspicuous colour schemes. Darwin had come to believe that many conspicuous animal colour schemes were due to sexual selection, but he saw that this could not apply to caterpillars. Wallace responded that he and Bates had observed that many of
18326-407: The dangers and wastefulness of militarism . In an 1899 essay, he called for popular opinion to be rallied against warfare by showing people "that all modern wars are dynastic; that they are caused by the ambition, the interests, the jealousies, and the insatiable greed of power of their rulers, or of the great mercantile and financial classes which have power and influence over their rulers; and that
18513-464: The deep channel between Borneo and Celebes , or Bali and Lombok. He points out the same principle between the British Isles and continental Europe, though there the conclusion is rather that the same fauna and flora is found on both sides. However, Murchison states his disagreement with Wallace's support for James Hutton 's principle of uniformitarianism , that " all former changes of the outline of
18700-544: The design of a building for the Neath Mechanics' Institute , founded in 1843. During this period, he exchanged letters with Bates about books. By the end of 1845, Wallace was convinced by Robert Chambers 's anonymously published treatise on progressive development , Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , but he found Bates was more critical. Wallace re-read Darwin's Journal , and on 11 April 1846 wrote "As
18887-403: The destruction and waste of wars and arms races, the rise of the urban poor and the dangerous conditions in which they lived and worked, a harsh criminal justice system that failed to reform criminals, abuses in a mental health system based on privately owned sanatoriums, the environmental damage caused by capitalism, and the evils of European colonialism. Wallace continued his social activism for
19074-554: The difference, and wonders whether the "Javan chief" and the Dyak do not differ more. The review, after ten pages of reflections on race, concludes by recommending the book to its readers as much better than ordinary travel books "and even in the absence of any very stirring incidents" that it will "amply repay the perusal" of both scientific and general readers. The Journal of the Ethnological Society of London focussed exclusively on
19261-644: The diversity of the early plant-eating species increased. Most recent plant-eating beetles feed on flowering plants or angiosperms, whose success contributed to a doubling of plant-eating species during the Middle Jurassic . However, the increase of the number of beetle families during the Cretaceous does not correlate with the increase of the number of angiosperm species. Around the same time, numerous primitive weevils (e.g. Curculionoidea ) and click beetles (e.g. Elateroidea ) appeared. The first jewel beetles (e.g. Buprestidae ) are present, but they remained rare until
19448-421: The dropping of, say, ten thousand bombs at midnight into an enemy's capital from an invisible flight of airships." In 1898, Wallace published The Wonderful Century: Its Successes and Its Failures , about developments in the 19th century. The first part of the book covered the major scientific and technical advances of the century; the second part covered what Wallace considered to be its social failures including
19635-715: The duplicates to museums and collectors back in Britain to fund the trip. Wallace hoped to gather evidence of the transmutation of species . Bates and he spent most of their first year collecting near Belém , then explored inland separately, occasionally meeting to discuss their findings. In 1849, they were briefly joined by another young explorer, the botanist Richard Spruce , along with Wallace's younger brother Herbert. Herbert soon left (dying two years later from yellow fever ), but Spruce, like Bates, would spend over ten years collecting in South America. Wallace spent four years charting
19822-528: The earth were produced slowly", opining that the Bali–Lombok channel probably formed suddenly. He mentions in one sentence that the book contains "interesting and important facts" on physical geography , native inhabitants, climate and products of the archipelago, and describes Wallace as a great naturalist and a "most attractive writer". One of the shortest reviews was in The Ladies' Repository , which found it
20009-715: The elytra for use while diving. Beetles are holometabolans , which means that they undergo complete metamorphosis , with a series of conspicuous and relatively abrupt changes in body structure between hatching and becoming adult after a relatively immobile pupal stage. Some, such as stag beetles , have a marked sexual dimorphism , the males possessing enormously enlarged mandibles which they use to fight other males. Many beetles are aposematic , with bright colors and patterns warning of their toxicity, while others are harmless Batesian mimics of such insects. Many beetles, including those that live in sandy places, have effective camouflage . Beetles are prominent in human culture , from
20196-462: The environment described by Wallace with the modern state of the archipelago. The Malay Archipelago is considered to be one of the most influential books ever written about the Indonesian islands. It remains a resource for modern authors of works about the region such as the 2014 book Indonesia Etc , which contains multiple quotations from Wallace's book as well as recommending it as further reading on
20383-482: The essay in a joint presentation together with unpublished writings which highlighted Darwin's priority. Wallace's essay was presented to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, along with excerpts from an essay which Darwin had disclosed privately to Hooker in 1847 and a letter Darwin had written to Asa Gray in 1857. Communication with Wallace in the far-off Malay Archipelago involved months of delay, so he
20570-500: The ethnology in the book, praising the value both of the information and of Wallace's "thoughtful and suggestive speculation". The review notes that Wallace identified two "types of mankind" in the archipelago, "the Malayan and the Papuan", and that he thought these two had "no traceable affinity to each other". It remarks that Wallace greatly extends knowledge of the people of Timor, Celebes, and
20757-583: The evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane to quip, when some theologians asked him what could be inferred about the mind of the Christian God from the works of His Creation, "An inordinate fondness for beetles". However, the ranking of beetles as most diverse has been challenged. Multiple studies posit that Diptera (flies) and/or Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, ants and bees) may have more species. Beetles are found in nearly all habitats, including freshwater and coastal habitats, wherever vegetative foliage
20944-511: The evolutionary hypothesis that closely related species should inhabit neighbouring territories. During his work in the Amazon basin, he came to realise that geographical barriers—such as the Amazon and its major tributaries—often separated the ranges of closely allied species. He included these observations in his 1853 paper "On the Monkeys of the Amazon". Near the end of the paper he asked the question, "Are very closely allied species ever separated by
21131-659: The extension of this "Papuan race" as far as Fiji, noting that there are or were people like that in Tasmania, but that their features and height varied widely, perhaps forming a series. The reviewer disagrees also that the Sandwich Islanders and "New Zealanders" (Maori) are related to the Papuans; and with Wallace's claim that the presence of Malay words in Polynesian languages is caused by the "roaming habits" – trade and navigation – of
21318-501: The face of "the difficulties and inconveniences attendant upon foreign travel", such as having to cross "a hundred miles of open sea in a little boat of four tons burthen", which Wallace calmly describes as comparatively comfortable. The reviewer remarks that Wallace was "set down as a conjuror by these simple people" with unimaginable purposes from a faraway country, but is less admiring about Wallace's moralising tone, especially when he supposes that "wild communities" can be happier than "in
21505-407: The fact that while in Sarawak in 1855 Wallace wrote the paper On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species , concluding with the evolutionary "Sarawak Law", "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a closely allied species", three years before he fatefully wrote to Darwin proposing the concept of natural selection . The first chapter describes
21692-413: The fauna reflect Australasia . He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species, and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography ", or more specifically of zoogeography . Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century, working on warning coloration in animals and reinforcement (sometimes known as the Wallace effect),
21879-425: The first letter, dated 1 May 1857, Darwin commented that Wallace's letter of 10 October which he had recently received, as well as Wallace's paper "On the Law which has regulated the Introduction of New Species" of 1855, showed that they thought alike, with similar conclusions, and said that he was preparing his own work for publication in about two years time. The second letter, dated 22 December 1857, said how glad he
22066-440: The first part is called the scape and the second part is the pedicel. The other segments are jointly called the flagellum. Beetles have mouthparts like those of grasshoppers . The mandibles appear as large pincers on the front of some beetles. The mandibles are a pair of hard, often tooth-like structures that move horizontally to grasp, crush, or cut food or enemies (see defence , below). Two pairs of finger-like appendages,
22253-428: The fruit has a repulsive odour, and the tree is dangerous, as the hard and heavy fruits can fall on your head. Radau follows Wallace up to the high plateaux of Java, where there are cypress forests covered in moss and lichen; finally at the summit the vegetation seems European, an island vegetation recalling the resemblance between the plants of the high Alps and of Lapland. And in Celebes, men run amok , generally killing
22440-580: The geography of Indonesia. The English comedian Bill Bailey travelled around Indonesia in the footsteps of Wallace for a two-part television programme on BBC Two, Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero , first broadcast in 2013, the centenary of Wallace's death . Each edition was reprinted in subsequent years, so for example the tenth edition appeared in 1890, 1893, 1894, 1898, 1902, 1906 and later reprints, so many different dates can be found in library catalogues. Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913)
22627-493: The great island trees, while the Malay hunts for them with his blunt-headed arrows..." The review concludes that the book is a fresh and valuable record of "a remote and romantic land". The Australian Town and Country Journal begins by stating that Mr. Wallace is generally understood to be the originator of the theory of " Natural Selection " as propounded by Mr. Darwin, and certainly .. he brings numerous phenomena which he regards as illustrative of that theory very vividly under
22814-437: The grounds that contemporary society was too corrupt and unjust to allow any reasonable determination of who was fit or unfit. In his 1890 article "Human Selection" he wrote, "Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent ..." He said, "The world does not want the eugenicist to set it straight," "Give the people good conditions, improve their environment, and all will tend towards
23001-497: The highest type. Eugenics is simply the meddlesome interference of an arrogant, scientific priestcraft." In 1898, Wallace wrote a paper advocating a pure paper money system, not backed by silver or gold , which impressed the economist Irving Fisher so much that he dedicated his 1920 book Stabilizing the Dollar to Wallace. Wallace wrote on other social and political topics, including in support of women's suffrage and repeatedly on
23188-599: The idea of natural selection. His autobiography says that he was on the island of Ternate at the time; but the evidence of his journal suggests that he was in fact on the island of Gilolo . From 1858 to 1861, he rented a house on Ternate from the Dutchman Maarten Dirk van Renesse van Duivenbode , which he used as a base for expeditions to other islands such as Gilolo. Wallace describes how he discovered natural selection as follows: It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in
23375-435: The idea of the transmutation of species in part because he was always inclined to favour radical ideas in politics, religion and science, and because he was unusually open to marginal, even fringe, ideas in science. Wallace was profoundly influenced by Robert Chambers 's Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation , a controversial work of popular science published anonymously in 1844. It advocated an evolutionary origin for
23562-412: The idea. Around the start of 1856, he told Darwin about Wallace's paper, as did Edward Blyth who thought it "Good! Upon the whole! ... Wallace has, I think put the matter well; and according to his theory the various domestic races of animals have been fairly developed into species ." Despite this hint, Darwin mistook Wallace's conclusion for the progressive creationism of the time, writing that it
23749-453: The insurance payment, and selling a few specimens that had been shipped home. During this period, despite having lost almost all the notes from his South American expedition, he wrote six academic papers (including "On the Monkeys of the Amazon") and two books, Palm Trees of the Amazon and Their Uses and Travels on the Amazon . At the same time, he made connections with several other British naturalists. Bates and others were collecting in
23936-541: The last published in 1890. It has been translated into at least twelve languages. The illustrations are, according to the Preface , made from Wallace's own sketches, photographs, or specimens. Wallace thanks Walter and Henry Woodbury for some photographs of scenery and native people. He acknowledges William Wilson Saunders and Mr Pascoe for horned flies and very rare longhorn beetles: all the rest were from his own enormous collection. The original drawings were made directly on to
24123-420: The leading illustrators Thomas Baines , Walter Hood Fitch , John Gerrard Keulemans , E. W. Robinson , Joseph Wolf and T. W. Wood . The Malay Archipelago attracted many reviews, with interest from scientific, geographic, church and general periodicals. Reviewers noted and sometimes disagreed with various aspects of his theories, especially the division of fauna and flora along what soon became known as
24310-431: The legs are usually located recessed within a coxal cavity. The genitalic structures are telescoped into the last abdominal segment in all extant beetles. Beetle larvae can often be confused with those of other holometabolan groups. The beetle's exoskeleton is made up of numerous plates, called sclerites , separated by thin sutures. This design provides armored defenses while maintaining flexibility. The general anatomy of
24497-407: The legs, the mouthparts, and the ventral plates (sterna, pleura, coxae). In many species accurate identification can only be made by examination of the unique male genitalic structures. The head, having mouthparts projecting forward or sometimes downturned, is usually heavily sclerotized and is sometimes very large. The eyes are compound and may display remarkable adaptability, as in the case of
24684-405: The manuscript to Charles Lyell with a letter saying "he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters ... he does not say he wishes me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write and offer to send to any journal." Distraught about the illness of his baby son, Darwin put the problem to Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker , who decided to publish
24871-489: The maxillary and labial palpi, are found around the mouth in most beetles, serving to move food into the mouth. In many species, the mandibles are sexually dimorphic, with those of the males enlarged enormously compared with those of females of the same species. The thorax is segmented into the two discernible parts, the pro- and pterothorax. The pterothorax is the fused meso- and metathorax, which are commonly separated in other insect species, although flexibly articulate from
25058-424: The most magnificent insects the world contains, the great bird-winged butterfly, Ornithoptera poseidon . I trembled with excitement as I saw it coming majestically towards me,... and was gazing, lost in admiration, at the velvet black and brilliant green of its wings, seven inches across, its golden body, and crimson breast... The village of Dobbo held that evening at least one contented man." The Malay Archipelago
25245-430: The most spectacular butterflies had a peculiar odour and taste, and that he had been told by John Jenner Weir that birds would not eat a certain kind of common white moth because they found it unpalatable. Since the moth was as conspicuous at dusk as a coloured caterpillar in daylight, it seemed likely that the conspicuous colours served as a warning to predators and thus could have evolved through natural selection. Darwin
25432-436: The most widespread being the species of Coptoclavidae , which preyed on aquatic fly larvae. A 2020 review of the palaeoecological interpretations of fossil beetles from Cretaceous ambers has suggested that saproxylicity was the most common feeding strategy, with fungivorous species in particular appearing to dominate. Many fossil sites worldwide contain beetles from the Cretaceous. Most are in Europe and Asia and belong to
25619-525: The negative impact they had on working-class people. In 1889, Wallace read Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy and declared himself a socialist, despite his earlier foray as a speculative investor. After reading Progress and Poverty , the bestselling book by the progressive land reformist Henry George , Wallace described it as "Undoubtedly the most remarkable and important book of the present century." Wallace opposed eugenics , an idea supported by other prominent 19th-century evolutionary thinkers, on
25806-431: The notice of his readers, and that, too, as if he were but a disciple of Mr. Darwin, and not an original discoverer. and quickly makes clear that it objects to Wallace's doubts about "indications of design" in plants. Despite this "grave" fault, the reviewer considers the book to be of immense value, and that it would become a standard work on the region. The review quotes a paragraph that paints "a picture of country life in
25993-490: The other suborders. Adephaga contains about 10 families of largely predatory beetles, includes ground beetles (Carabidae), water beetles ( Dytiscidae ) and whirligig beetles (Gyrinidae). In these insects, the testes are tubular and the first abdominal sternum (a plate of the exoskeleton ) is divided by the hind coxae (the basal joints of the beetle's legs). Archostemata contains four families of mainly wood-eating beetles, including reticulated beetles (Cupedidae) and
26180-419: The paper "English and American Flowers". He met many other prominent American naturalists and viewed their collections. His 1889 book Darwinism used information he collected on his American trip and information he had compiled for the lectures. On 7 November 1913, Wallace died at home, aged 90, in the country house he called Old Orchard, which he had built a decade earlier. His death was widely reported in
26367-418: The philosopher Herbert Spencer . During the 1860s, Wallace wrote papers and gave lectures defending natural selection. He corresponded with Darwin about topics including sexual selection , warning coloration , and the possible effect of natural selection on hybridisation and the divergence of species. In 1865, he began investigating spiritualism. After a year of courtship, Wallace became engaged in 1864 to
26554-474: The places Wallace visited. Wallace includes numerous observations on the people, their languages, ways of living, and social organisation, as well as on the plants and animals found in each location. He talks about the biogeographic patterns he observes and their implications for natural history , in terms both of the movement of species and of the geologic history of the region. He also narrates some of his personal experiences during his travels. The final chapter
26741-429: The position of co-discoverer, and he was not the social equal of Darwin or the other prominent British natural scientists. All the same, the joint reading of their papers on natural selection associated Wallace with the more famous Darwin. This, combined with Darwin's (as well as Hooker's and Lyell's) advocacy on his behalf, would give Wallace greater access to the highest levels of the scientific community. The reaction to
26928-505: The possible satisfactions of mass murder as a form of honourable suicide for the brooding and resentful man who 'will not put up with such cruel wrongs, but will be revenged on mankind and die like a hero.' Robin McKie, in The Observer , writes that the common view of Wallace "as a clever, decent cove who knew his place" as second fiddle to Charles Darwin is rather lopsided. Wallace, he writes,
27115-401: The press. The New York Times called him "the last of the giants [belonging] to that wonderful group of intellectuals composed of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Lyell, Owen, and other scientists, whose daring investigations revolutionized and evolutionized the thought of the century". Another commentator in the same edition said: "No apology need be made for the few literary or scientific follies of
27302-557: The prospect of good profits. They therefore engaged as their agent Samuel Stevens who would advertise and arrange sales to institutions and private collectors, for a commission of 20% on sales plus 5% on despatching freight and remittances of money. In 1848, Wallace and Bates left for Brazil aboard the Mischief . They intended to collect insects and other animal specimens in the Amazon Rainforest for their private collections, selling
27489-410: The prothorax. When viewed from below, the thorax is that part from which all three pairs of legs and both pairs of wings arise. The abdomen is everything posterior to the thorax. When viewed from above, most beetles appear to have three clear sections, but this is deceptive: on the beetle's upper surface, the middle section is a hard plate called the pronotum , which is only the front part of the thorax;
27676-460: The question, why do some die and some live? And the answer was clearly, on the whole the best fitted live ... and considering the amount of individual variation that my experience as a collector had shown me to exist, then it followed that all the changes necessary for the adaptation of the species to the changing conditions would be brought about ... In this way every part of an animals organization could be modified exactly as required, and in
27863-491: The reading was muted, with the president of the Linnean Society remarking in May 1859 that the year had not been marked by any striking discoveries; but, with Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species later in 1859, its significance became apparent. When Wallace returned to the UK, he met Darwin. Although some of Wallace's opinions in the ensuing years would test Darwin's patience, they remained on friendly terms for
28050-478: The relative state of "civilized" and "savage", wondering which is morally superior, and notes the "nostalgia for the primitive state", concluding that civilisation brings the benefit of reason to restrain hasty action. Tim Radford, writing in The Guardian , considers that The Malay Archipelago shows Wallace to be "an extraordinary figure", since he is an adventurer who does not present himself as adventurous; he
28237-425: The rest of Darwin's life. Over the years, a few people have questioned this version of events. In the early 1980s, two books, one by Arnold Brackman and another by John Langdon Brooks , suggested not only that there had been a conspiracy to rob Wallace of his proper credit, but that Darwin had actually stolen a key idea from Wallace to finish his own theory. These claims have been examined and found unconvincing by
28424-527: The rest of his life, publishing the book The Revolt of Democracy just weeks before his death. In 1880, he published Island Life as a sequel to The Geographic Distribution of Animals . In November 1886, Wallace began a ten-month trip to the United States to give a series of popular lectures. Most of the lectures were on Darwinism (evolution through natural selection), but he also gave speeches on biogeography , spiritualism, and socio-economic reform. During
28611-497: The results of war are never good for the people, who yet bear all its burthens (burdens)". In a letter published by the Daily Mail in 1909, with aviation in its infancy, he advocated an international treaty to ban the military use of aircraft, arguing against the idea "that this new horror is 'inevitable', and that all we can do is to be sure and be in the front rank of the aerial assassins—for surely no other term can so fitly describe
28798-540: The review notes that Wallace seemed to have enjoyed his time in the Celebes, with the hornbills flapping past, and the baboons staring down from their trees, and enjoys his enthusiasm for the birds of paradise . The review is respectful of his account of the Wallace line, having no difficulty agreeing that the Australian-type vegetation continues into the archipelago as far as Lombok and Celebes. It concludes that he covers almost every natural phenomenon he came across "with
28985-473: The reviewer's desk since Palgrave 's Arabia (1865) and Sir Samuel Baker 's Explorations of the Nile (1866). By combining geography, geology and ethnology into one narrative, the reader is saved "the monotony of traversing the same regions several times". The review describes in detail Wallace's findings of different birds and mammals either side of the Wallace line. It notes Wallace's cheerfulness and good temper in
29172-533: The same as his own, there were differences. Darwin emphasised competition between individuals of the same species to survive and reproduce, whereas Wallace emphasised environmental pressures on varieties and species forcing them to become adapted to their local conditions, leading populations in different locations to diverge. The historian of science Peter J. Bowler has suggested that in the paper he mailed to Darwin, Wallace might have been discussing group selection . Against this, Malcolm Kottler showed that Wallace
29359-427: The same time, he describes his experiences, the difficulties of travel, and the help he received from the different peoples that he met. The preface notes that he travelled over 14,000 miles and collected 125,660 natural history specimens, mostly of insects though also thousands of molluscs , birds , mammals and reptiles . The work was illustrated with engravings, based on Wallace's observations and collection, by
29546-766: The same year. The first US edition year by Harper & Brothers (New York) appeared in 1869 in a single volume. Wallace returned to England in 1862, but explains in the Preface that given the large quantity of specimens and his poor health after his stay in the tropics, it took a long time. He noted that he could at once have printed his notes and journals, but felt that doing that would have been disappointing and unhelpful. Instead, therefore, he waited until he had published papers on his discoveries, and other scientists had described and named as new species some 2,000 of his beetles ( Coleoptera ), and over 900 Hymenoptera including 200 new species of ant . The book went through 10 editions, with
29733-510: The sea and the polar regions , they interact with their ecosystems in several ways: beetles often feed on plants and fungi , break down animal and plant debris, and eat other invertebrates . Some species are serious agricultural pests, such as the Colorado potato beetle , while others such as Coccinellidae (ladybirds or ladybugs) eat aphids , scale insects , thrips , and other plant-sucking insects that damage crops. Some others also have unusual characteristics, such as fireflies , which use
29920-438: The solar system, the earth, and living things. Wallace wrote to Henry Bates in 1845 describing it as "an ingenious hypothesis strongly supported by some striking facts and analogies, but which remains to be proven by ... more research". In 1847, he wrote to Bates that he would "like to take some one family [of beetles] to study thoroughly, ... with a view to the theory of the origin of species." Wallace planned fieldwork to test
30107-652: The southern Atlantic Ocean and the isolation of New Zealand, while South America, Antarctica, and Australia grew more distant. The diversity of Cupedidae and Archostemata decreased considerably. Predatory ground beetles (Carabidae) and rove beetles (Staphylinidae) began to distribute into different patterns; the Carabidae predominantly occurred in the warm regions, while the Staphylinidae and click beetles (Elateridae) preferred temperate climates. Likewise, predatory species of Cleroidea and Cucujoidea hunted their prey under
30294-494: The sparkling observations, like "the river bed 'a mass of pebbles, mostly pure white quartz, but with abundance of jasper and agate'"; the detailed but lively accounts of natural history and physical geography; the respectful and friendly attitude to the native peoples such as the hill Dyaks of Borneo ; and his unclouded observations of human society, such as the way a Bugis man in Lombok runs amok , where Wallace begins to reflect on
30481-483: The spread of the Jesuits into the interior, though the missionaries had to live on just 750 francs a year. Singapore was covered in wooded hills, and the sawn wood and rotten trunks supported innumerable beetles for the naturalist to study. The only disagreeable element was that the tigers that roared in the forest devoured on average one Chinese per day, especially in the ginger plantations. Radau summarises one passage from
30668-678: The temperate climate zone during the Cretaceous. Lower Cretaceous sites include the Crato fossil beds in the Araripe basin in the Ceará , North Brazil, as well as overlying Santana formation; the latter was near the equator at that time. In Spain, important sites are near Montsec and Las Hoyas . In Australia, the Koonwarra fossil beds of the Korumburra group, South Gippsland , Victoria, are noteworthy. Major sites from
30855-418: The thousands of specimens he collected, and some of the results from their analysis after his return to England. In the preface he notes that he travelled over 14,000 miles and collected 125,660 specimens, mostly of insects: 83,200 beetles , 13,100 butterflies and moths , 13,400 other insects. He also returned to England 7,500 "shells" (such as molluscs ), 8,050 birds, 310 mammals and 100 reptiles. The book
31042-478: The tip. The Scarabaeidae typically have lamellate antennae with the terminal segments extended into long flat structures stacked together. The Carabidae typically have thread-like antennae. The antennae arises between the eye and the mandibles and in the Tenebrionidae, the antennae rise in front of a notch that breaks the usually circular outline of the compound eye. They are segmented and usually consist of 11 parts,
31229-576: The title character read The Malay Archipelago while travelling to Borneo , and its influence can be felt in the story's description of that island. More recently, the book has influenced a number of non-fiction books including The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen (1997), which discussed Wallace's contributions to the field of island biogeography ; The Spice Islands Voyage by Tim Severin (1997) that retraced Wallace's travels; and Archipelago: The Islands of Indonesia , by Gavan Daws (1999), which compared
31416-536: The trip, he was reunited with his brother John who had emigrated to California years before. He spent a week in Colorado, with the American botanist Alice Eastwood as his guide, exploring the flora of the Rocky Mountains and gathering evidence that would lead him to a theory on how glaciation might explain certain commonalities between the mountain flora of Europe, Asia and North America, which he published in 1891 in
31603-407: The very process of this modification the unmodified would die out, and thus the definite characters and the clear isolation of each new species would be explained. Wallace had once briefly met Darwin, and was one of the correspondents whose observations Darwin used to support his own theories. Although Wallace's first letter to Darwin has been lost, Wallace carefully kept the letters he received. In
31790-433: The work needed to describe the many specimens he brought home. The book went through ten editions in the nineteenth century; it has been reprinted many times since, and has been translated into at least twelve languages. The book describes each island that he visited in turn, giving a detailed account of its physical and human geography , its volcanoes , and the variety of animals and plants that he found and collected. At
31977-405: The £200 annual pension was awarded in 1881, it helped to stabilise Wallace's financial position by supplementing the income from his writings. In 1881, Wallace was elected as the first president of the newly formed Land Nationalisation Society. In the next year, he published a book, Land Nationalisation; Its Necessity and Its Aims , on the subject. He criticised the UK's free trade policies for
32164-518: Was "nothing very new ... Uses my simile of tree [but] it seems all creation with him." Lyell was more impressed, and opened a notebook on species in which he grappled with the consequences, particularly for human ancestry. Darwin had already shown his theory to their mutual friend Joseph Hooker and now, for the first time spelt out the full details of natural selection to Lyell. Although Lyell could not agree, he urged Darwin to publish to establish priority. Darwin demurred at first, but began writing up
32351-688: Was 125,660 specimens, most of which were insects including more than 83,000 beetles, Several thousand of the specimens represented species new to science, Overall, more than thirty men worked for him at some stage as full-time paid collectors. He also hired guides, porters, cooks and boat crews, so well over 100 individuals worked for him. After collecting expeditions to Bukit Timah Hill in Singapore, and to Malacca , Wallace and Allen reached Sarawak in October 1854, and were welcomed at Kuching by Sir James Brooke's (then) heir Captain John Brooke . Wallace hired
32538-633: Was a social activist, critical of what he considered to be an unjust social and economic system in 19th-century Britain. His advocacy of spiritualism and his belief in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans strained his relationship with other scientists. He was one of the first prominent scientists to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity . He wrote prolifically on both scientific and social issues; his account of his adventures and observations during his explorations in Southeast Asia, The Malay Archipelago ,
32725-434: Was an English naturalist , explorer, geographer , anthropologist , biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection ; his 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin 's earlier writings on the topic. It spurred Darwin to set aside the "big species book" he was drafting and quickly write an abstract of it, which
32912-570: Was exposed to the radical political ideas of the Welsh social reformer Robert Owen and of the English-born political theorist Thomas Paine . He left London in 1837 to live with William and work as his apprentice for six years. They moved repeatedly to different places in Mid-Wales. Then at the end of 1839, they moved to Kington, Herefordshire , near the Welsh border, before eventually settling at Neath in Wales. Between 1840 and 1843, Wallace worked as
33099-482: Was first published in 1869. It continues to be both popular and highly regarded. Alfred Russel Wallace was born on 8 January 1823 in Llanbadoc , Monmouthshire. He was the eighth of nine children born to Mary Anne Wallace ( née Greenell ) and Thomas Vere Wallace. His mother was English, while his father was of Scottish ancestry. His family claimed a connection to William Wallace , a leader of Scottish forces during
33286-489: Was impressed by the idea. At a later meeting of the Entomological Society, Wallace asked for any evidence anyone might have on the topic. In 1869, Weir published data from experiments and observations involving brightly coloured caterpillars that supported Wallace's idea. Wallace attributed less importance than Darwin to sexual selection. In his 1878 book Tropical Nature and Other Essays , he wrote extensively about
33473-418: Was indeed discussing individual variation and selection. Others have noted that Wallace appeared to have envisioned natural selection as a kind of feedback mechanism that kept species and varieties adapted to their environment (now called 'stabilizing", as opposed to 'directional' selection). They point to a largely overlooked passage of Wallace's famous 1858 paper, in which he likened "this principle ... [to]
33660-410: Was not part of this rapid publication. Wallace accepted the arrangement after the fact, happy that he had been included at all, and never expressed bitterness in public or in private. Darwin's social and scientific status was far greater than Wallace's, and it was unlikely that, without Darwin, Wallace's views on evolution would have been taken seriously. Lyell and Hooker's arrangement relegated Wallace to
33847-401: Was paid by Lyell and Darwin to help edit some of their works. In 1876, Wallace needed a £500 advance from the publisher of The Geographical Distribution of Animals to avoid having to sell some of his personal property. Darwin was very aware of Wallace's financial difficulties and lobbied long and hard to get Wallace awarded a government pension for his lifetime contributions to science. When
34034-465: Was published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species . Wallace did extensive fieldwork, starting in the Amazon River basin . He then did fieldwork in the Malay Archipelago , where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line , which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where
34221-415: Was quite unlike the dull journey logs of most travel books; it was "a romance, which is, nevertheless, plain matter of fact". The review especially admires the way that Wallace "has generalised on the facts" rather than just shooting "a multitude of birds" and interminably describing them. The account notes that Wallace was the joint originator of the theory of natural selection, and summarises the discovery of
34408-851: Was stalled by the Crimean War , but eventually the RGS funded first class travel by P&O steamships. Wallace and a young assistant, Charles Allen, embarked at Southampton on 4 March 1854. After the overland journey to Suez and another change of ship at Ceylon they disembarked at Singapore on 19 April 1854. From 1854 to 1862, Wallace travelled around the islands of the Malay Archipelago or East Indies (now Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia). His main objective "was to obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to museums and amateurs". In addition to Allen, he "generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants" as assistants, and paid large numbers of local people at various places to bring specimens. His total
34595-619: Was that Wallace was theorising about distribution, adding that "without speculation there is no good and original observation" but commented that "I believe I go much further than you". Wallace believed this and sent Darwin his February 1858 essay, " On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type ", asking Darwin to review it and pass it to Charles Lyell if he thought it worthwhile. Although Wallace had sent several articles for journal publication during his travels through
34782-613: Was unveiled on 1 November 1915. Wallace began his career as a travelling naturalist who already believed in the transmutation of species. The concept had been advocated by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire , Erasmus Darwin , and Robert Grant , among others. It was widely discussed, but not generally accepted by leading naturalists, and was considered to have radical , even revolutionary connotations. Prominent anatomists and geologists such as Georges Cuvier , Richard Owen , Adam Sedgwick , and Lyell attacked transmutation vigorously. It has been suggested that Wallace accepted
34969-410: Was warmly received on publication, often in lengthy reviews that attempted to summarise the book, from the perspective that suited the reviewing periodical. It was reviewed in more than 40 periodicals: a selection of those reviews is summarised below. The Anthropological Review notes that while the descriptions of animal life are "full of interest", "our readers, as anthropologists, will, however, take
#507492