Insects
Original title: Insectos
Survey of the insect fauna of the Madeira archipelago, giving species counts by order according to James Yate Johnson and later specialists, and noting Wollaston's and Darwin's observations on flightless beetles.
According to the late English naturalist James Yate Johnson, there are 1,331 species of insects in the Madeira archipelago, distributed as follows:
- Coleoptera: 695
- Euplexoptera: 4
- Orthoptera: 19
- Thysanoptera: 6
- Neuroptera: 37
- Trichoptera: 10
- Hymenoptera: 217
- Lepidoptera: 112
- Hemiptera: 54
- Homoptera: 14
- Aphaniptera: 3
- and Diptera: 160.
It should be noted, however, that since these figures were published new studies have been made of some groups: Professor Teodoro Becker has recorded 212 Madeiran species of Diptera, and Malcolm Burr 29 of Orthoptera. Perhaps we shall not stray far from the truth if we say that there are some 2,000 species of insects in the archipelago, the Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Diptera being the most widely represented groups in our region.
Thomas Vernon Wollaston, the author of Insecta Maderensia, found 629 Coleoptera on Madeira, 163 on Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) and 89 on the Desertas (‘deserted islands’), and noted that many of these species have no wings or only very imperfectly developed ones. In Darwin’s view, this is a consequence of natural selection, probably combined with the disuse of those organs. Insects that do not feed on the ground but, like certain Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, feed on flowers, and must therefore use their wings to find food, have, as Thomas Vernon Wollaston observed, well-developed wings rather than rudimentary ones, the same naturalist adds.
In this article
Place
Places mentioned · 03
- Desertas
Santa Cruz. Islands where Wollaston found 89 beetle species.
An island group near Madeira that was already separated from it at the last eruptions and shares endemic species with it. It was the main orchil-harvesting area, and Wollaston found 89 beetle species there. The islands were investigated by scientific expeditions, including the Endurance scientists in 1914.
- Porto Santo
Island where Wollaston found 163 beetle species.
An island of the archipelago, settled alongside Madeira and forming one of the three captaincies. It has always constituted a single parish, dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Piedade, whose church was repeatedly sacked. The Elucidário records the Moorish pirate raid of 1617, its own Misericórdia and a rainwater channel built on this drought-prone island.
People
People mentioned · 05-
Naturalist who explained the flightlessness of Madeiran beetles as a result of natural selection combined with disuse.
- James Yate Johnson1820–1900
English naturalist who counted 1,331 insect species in the Madeira archipelago, the base figure cited here.
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Entomologist who recorded 29 Madeiran species of Orthoptera.
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Entomologist who recorded 212 Madeiran species of Diptera (flies).
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Author of Insecta Maderensia, who found 629 beetle species on Madeira, 163 on Porto Santo and 89 on the Desertas, many flightless.