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There are over 400,000 distinct, named species of beetle in the world, and possibly twice as many unnamed ones.

When asked what his studies of Creation had revealed to him about the nature of God, the Scottish geneticist J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) supposedly answered: “He seems to have had an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

(According to science writer Stephen Jay Gould, the quip is undeniably Haldane’s, who often repeated it, but the story of it being a riposte to an actual theological question cannot be verified.)

Haldane was also the author of a children’s book, My Friend Mr Leakey, which has a very Pratchettian tone, and is strongly recommended.

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