rare

Feather-horned Beetle

Rhipicera femorata

Habitat: Eucalypt woodland and scrub across southern Australia, on foliage in late summer
Body length: 20 mm
Order: Coleoptera · Rhipiceridae

Weird but real

Each plumed male antenna carries about 30,000 scent receptors to sniff out a female; hers have barely 100.

It wears two feathery radar dishes on its head and its babies likely hunt buried cicadas — absurd yet fully real.