THE CRUX
THE LATEST SCIENCE NEWS AND NOTES
March 2018^ DISCOVER^9SENSING A MATCH
Perched on a branch in Australia, a male feather-horned beetle, Rhipicera femorata, searches for companionship. A 2015 paper suggests that
during the beetle’s mating season, sight and hearing don’t come into play when a male is looking for a partner. Instead, the aptly named insect
uses chemical receptors on its large, bushy antennae to sense the mating pheromones of nearby females, which have fewer receptors.
ERNIE MASTROIANNI; PHOTOGRAPH BY RON AND BETH KINSEY