Australian Beetles Volume 1: Morphology, Classification and Keys

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Description

This three-volume series represents a comprehensive treatment of the beetles of Australia, a relatively under-studied fauna that includes many unusual and unique lineages found nowhere else on Earth. Volume 1 contains keys to all 117 beetle families found in Australia, and includes over 1100 illustrations of adults, larvae and anatomical structures. This volume is based in part on Lawrence & Brittons out-of-print Australian Beetles, but is fully updated and expanded. The biology and morphology for all major beetle lineages is described and illustrated, along with anatomical terms which clarify the characters and terminology used in the keys; few other resources for beetle identification include such a detailed morphological background. A chapter on the fossil record is also included, and family sections provide full descriptions of adults and larvae, including the world distribution of each family. The revised identification keys (currently recognised as one of the most valuable keys worldwide) will aid quarantine agents, biologists and students in identifying members of the most species-rich order of animals.

Author Bio

John F. Lawrence is one of the worlds preeminent coleopterists; he worked at Harvard Universitys Museum of Comparative Zoology before emigrating to Australia, where he served as a Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Australian National Insect Collection (CSIRO) until 1999. He has published more than 200 research articles and book chapters and was co-editor of a recent volume of Handbook of Zoology and author or co-author of more than 50 chapters in that volume. John is now retired but continues to conduct research; he is a leading member of the Beetle Tree of Life project's morphological phylogenetics section.

Adam Slipinski completed his PhD and DSc in Poland where he worked for 20 years at the Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw and held a joint appointment as the professor of biology at the University of Zielona Gora teaching entomology and environmental biology. He is the author of over 100 research publications, editor of a two-volume book on the phylogeny and classification of beetles and an author of a book on Australian ladybird beetles. Adams research concentrates on the phylogeny and higher classification of beetles. With John Lawrence he is coordinating the morphological part of the Beetle Tree of Life project.