Insects

Abstract

Insects remains, particularly Coleoptera (beetles), are usually amongst the most abundant and varied fossils in any non-marine Quaternary deposit that has remained in a waterlogged condition since its original deposition. Since beetles are often closely tied to particular environmental niches, their fossils can provide a detailed picture of the available habitats close to the site at which they were found. For the most part, they do not seem to have been transported, dead or alive, over any great distance and the bulk of them were probably living within a kilometre or so of their place of burial. If a deposit dries out or is weathered, the insect remains it contains are rapidly decomposed, so there is little chance of them being eroded out of one deposit and redeposited elsewhere; in other words insects do not readily occur as derived fossils. They can therefore be relied upon to give palaeoenviron-mental information on the period when sediments were actually accumulating.