Morphology and Systematics (Elateroidea, Bostrichiformia, Cucujiformia partim)

The Handbook of Zoology aims to provide an in-depth treatment of the entire animal kingdom, covering both invertebrates and vertebrates. It publishes comprehensive overviews on animal systematics and morphology as well as extensive coverage of physiology, behavior, ecology and applied aspects of zoological research. Although our knowledge regarding many taxonomic groups has grown enormously over the last decades, it is still the ambition of the Handbook to be comprehensive in the sense that text and references together provide a solid basis for further research. Editors and authors seek a balance between describing species richness and diversity, explaining the importance of certain groups in a phylogenetic context and presenting a review
of available knowledge and up-to-date reference literature. New contributions to the series present the combined effort of an international team of editors and authors, entirely published in English and tailored to the needs of the international scientific community.

The Handbook of Zoology provides an in-depth treatment of the entire animal kingdom covering both invertebrates and vertebrates. It publishes comprehensive overviews on animal systematics and morphology and covers extensively further aspects like physiology, behavior, ecology and applied zoological research.

This book is the second of four volumes in the Handbook of Zoology series which treat the systematics and biology of Coleoptera. With approximately 350,000 described species, Coleoptera are by far the most species-rich order of insects and the largest group of animals of comparable geological age.

The beetle volumes will meet the demand of modern biologists seeking to answer questions about Coleoptera phylogeny, evolution, and ecology. This second Coleoptera volume covers the remaining polyphagan taxa (apart from Phytophaga) and recently described groups not included in the first volume (covering the suborders Archostemata, Myxophaga and Adephaga, and the basal series of Polyphaga), with information on world distribution, biology, morphology of all life stages (including anatomy), phylogeny and comments on taxonomy.