Lymexylon Navale. (Ship-timber Beetle) Plate 382.

Lymexylon Navale. (Ship-timber Beetle) Plate 382. From British Entomology; Being Illustrations and Descriptions of The Genera of Insects…, published in London between 1824 and 1840 by John Curtis. This hand-colored plate depicts Lymexylon navale, a beetle of the family Lymexylidae, commonly known as the ship-timber beetle. Curtis highlights its elongated body and wood-boring habits, which made it notorious among early naturalists and shipbuilders for damaging oak and other timbers used in construction. His accompanying text notes the insect's life cycle within wood and its potential impact on maritime and architectural materials. As with many plates in the series, it combines careful entomological observation with artistic detail, preserving a record of an insect both scientifically intriguing and economically significant in 19th-century Britain.