Tribolium

Not to be confused with.. Tribolium castaneum, the red flour beetle, is often confused with Tenebrio molitor, the common ‘meal worm’ found in pet shops. Although morphologically similar to Tenebrio, Tribolium is much smaller and even easier to breed. That’s why this beetle was used by population geneticists for decades before it was rediscovered as a system in which embryonic development, and other biological phenomena such as pesticide resistance, can be genetically analysed. The ease with which it can be manipulated, its taxonomic position, and the fact that it is a representative of the largest animal order, were the main reasons why last October Tribolium was selected by NHGRI to be included in its list of species that will have their genomes sequenced in the near future.