In the old days, entomologists placed beetles with club-shaped antennae—the “club” being composed of multiple flattened segments—into the suborder Lamellicornia. The term, derived from the Latin words lamella (“thin plate”) + cornu (“horn”), is now obsolete, and the group is more properly called the Scarabaeoidea—a superfamily comprising stag beetles, dung beetles, and scarab beetles. The males of this particular species, Polyphylla uteana, have especially impressive clubs composed of seven highly elongate plates that are held closed when inactive but open up fan-shaped when searching for females. The surfaces of the plates are packed with olfactory (smell) receptors that detect female pheromones, and opening the clubs exposes the plate surfaces to maximize the ability of the beetle to get a “whiff” of any nearby females. There are dozens of species in the genus distributed throughout North America, but this one is endemic to the Coral Sand Dunes in southwestern Utah. They were attracted to ultraviolet light at night back in June 2023.

©️ Ted C. MacRae 2025