Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of numerous insects of the order Coleoptera; a beetle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One of the Coleoptera; a beetle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) One of the order of Coleoptera.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any insect of the order Coleoptera; includes the beetles, weevils and fireflies

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From New Latin Coleoptera, order name, from Greek koleopteros, sheath-winged : koleon, sheath; see kel- in Indo-European roots + pteron, wing; see pet- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • Other noteworthy fauna include cave-dwelling species such as a collembolan Tricanthella frigida, an endemic found in Gavarnie cirque at 2,500 m, and coleopteran Tipnus unicolor and Speonomus bolivari.

    Pyrenees-Mont Perdu, France and Spain 2008

  • Russell Coope, The climatic significance of coleopteran assemblages from the Eemian deposits in southern England, Geologie en Mijnbouw / Netherlands Journal of Geosciences 79 (2/3): 257-267 (2000)

    Bürger and Cubasch: Are multiproxy climate reconstructions robust? « Climate Audit 2005

  • This system also allowed the transfer of lepidopteran-active crystal genes into coleopteran-active BT strains for the generation of new hybrid clones active against both orders.

    Chapter 8 1994

  • CSIRO in Australia isolated 200 samples of BT; these were screened against Tribolium castaneum to find a bacterium effective against stored-product coleopteran pests (Beckett,1989).

    Chapter 8 1994

  • Maize MON863 expresses a variant Bacillus thuringiensis cry3Bb1 gene which confers protection against coleopteran pests, principally the corn rootworm (Diabrotica spp.).

    Food IngredientsFIrst News 2010

  • The trait, for which the deal was struck, provides protection from below-ground coleopteran insects, including corn rootworm, a major corn pest in the United States, it also said in a statement.

    Reuters: Top News 2010

  • It was hoped that this subspecies would have potential for controlling coleopteran pests (McGaughey,

    Chapter 8 1994

Comments

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  • As in: "That insect presents certain coleopteran characteristics, but the lack of wing covers indicates that it is not actually a beetle."

    November 14, 2007

  • The wing covers are called elytra (singular elytron).

    November 14, 2007