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common
Devil's Coach Horse Beetle
Ocypus olens
- Habitat
- European, North African and introduced damp woodland, hedgerows and gardens
- Body length
- 28 mm
- Order
- Coleoptera · Staphylinidae
Weird but real
Threatened, it curls its abdomen up like a scorpion and oozes a foul stink from two white glands.
Why it's cool
A short-winged rove beetle that bluffs like a scorpion, bites hard, and patrols gardens as a night-shift pest assassin.
