| “ | After man there would be the mighty beetle civilisation, the bodies of whose members the cream of the Great Race would seize when the monstrous doom overtook the elder world.
Perhaps these entities had come to prefer earth's inner abysses to the variable, storm-ravaged surface, since light meant nothing to them. Perhaps, too, they were slowly weakening with the aeons. Indeed, it was known that they would be quite dead in the time of the post-human beetle race which the fleeing minds would tenant. |
” |
— Nathaniel Peaslee, The Shadow Out of Time
| ||
| Coleopterous Species | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Naming | |||
| Others | "The Beetle Race" | ||
| Morphology | |||
| Body type | Insectoid | ||
| Intelligence | |||
| Sentience | Sentient | ||
| Sapience | Sapient | ||
| Ecology | |||
| Place of origin | Earth (in the future) | ||
| Behind the Scenes | |||
| Universe | Cthulhu Mythos | ||
| Created by | H. P. Lovecraft | ||
This unnamed coleopterous species which hasn't evolved yet is destined to become to next dominant intelligence on Earth immediately after mankind. They are a hardy beetle species which has achieved sapience and developed an advanced civilization.
History[]
At some point in the Mesozoic, the mind-swapping Yithians avoided being annihilated by their enemies, the horrid Flying Polyps by means of transferring their minds en masse through time, to inhabit the bodies of the post-human beetle race, as the beetles live in a time period where the Polyps are no longer present on Earth. The beetles themselves thus became extinct as their minds were trapped in the doomed bodies that used to belong to the Yithians.
In an extremely distant future, as the Earth starts to freeze, these "new Yithians" (i.e. Yithians inhabiting the bodies that once belonged to the coleopterous race) will again migrate through time and space, this time transferring their minds to the Mercurians. Thus, the Earth will be inherited by other races, including an arachnid species described as the Earth's last denizens.
Appearances[]
- The Shadow Out of Time, by H. P. Lovecraft (1936) (Mentioned only)