I'll grab another look at O'Keefe's revision and see if he mentions anything.

and the terminal segments of the maxillary palpi look huge! I thought these were used for guiding food into the month, but those look rather like they'ed be better for knocking it out.

Great shots of a great beetle!

Thanks Tim. The palpi do look very spider-like. In my mind at least.

about the maxillary palpi. What I'm referring to are behind the eyes, more at the base of the head. I've never seen a feature like this on any other beetle.

I'll check the revision this weekend.

sorry Jim, I should have been clearer that I saw your structures on the neck, but was also commenting about the huge terminal max palpi. The neck structures look to me like just additional setae, arranged in a tighter, shorter group inside of the long stiff ones (and all that "back hair" on the pronotum - yuk! This guy could sure benefit from a trip to the barber :)

For what its worth, D&A only list one species north of Mex. for the genus - C. amoena LeConte, seen here at the MCZ. The head-on view gives a different look at the neck structures.

O'Keefe refers to them as 'two concentric rings of long, erect, inwardly directed setae.' No hypothesis is given for their function.

Two additional species were described in 1997.

discover the function of them thar thangs.