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Beetles and humans

affluent people’s childhoods. The acceptance and

encouragement of natural history-related hobbies

at this time ultimately led to the world being

enriched by the theories of Charles Darwin,

Alfred Russel Wallace, and Henry Walter Bates;

the discoveries of Mary Anning and Gideon and

Mary Mantell; and the foundation of great

museum collections, which are largely distillations

of private collections of previous generations of

amateurs. Private collections have been described

as streams that flow into and feed the rivers of

institutional collections, and ultimately into the

sea of human knowledge.

Other notable occasions when entomological

interest has blossomed and become integrated into

popular culture have been in Europe, notably the

former Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany,

POPULAR CULTURE

Collecting and studying beetles, or other objects

from nature such as plants, fossils, and butterflies,

was a popular pastime in various parts of the

world at different times, when people had

sufficient leisure, education, and access to natural

habitats. Sometimes this is a background hobby

with only a few adherents in any generation, but

sometimes it becomes fully integrated into the

popular culture of a time and place, and when this

happens, people learn from one another, collect

together, publish guidebooks, and interest in

nature becomes more widespread, until a more

“nature literate” society emerges. An early

example of such a flowering is Victorian and

Edwardian Britain, where butterfly nets or

geological hammers were a standard part of many

left | Allomyrina dichotoma

(Scarabaeidae)

A girl admires a Japanese

rhinoceros beetle, called

Kabutomushi (helmet

beetle) for the impressive

forked horn that resembles

a samurai helmet. The

beetle remains common

in Japan.