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i was lucky enough to be at the museum today when a few people from the library got to go on a tour of the beetle collection, and i tagged along. the museum has about 17 million insect specimens and over a million are beetles. pretty amazing. the scientist who showed us around just finished a 2,000 page paper on one particular beetle. and back in his office we got to see one (with a microscope) which is the only known specimen of its kind.
back in the fifties (or sixties maybe) a very large african beetle was found in a shipment of bananas at one of the ports, and was sent over to the museum to be checked out. turned out to be harmles, so the entomology people kept him as a pet. when he died the times ran an obit -- with a photo.
did you know that fireflies are a type of beetle?
anybody needs to watch the first four episodes of the sopranos can download them with kazaa by searching for "Sopranos pre-air." not a broadcast quality picture but not terrible either.