Probably the strangest insect I have ever seen.
This bizarre creature is actually a beetle and this one is a female. The males are normal, unremarkable looking beetles and as a result they remained undiscovered to science for a long time. Even these day to identify a male trilobite beetle you usually need to look at its DNA.
The females on the other hand are unmistakable because for some reason they never undergo metamorphosis and so remain in the larval form their whole lives, a condition known at neoteny.
These rare insects live in forests of South East Asia. My partner found this one and about six others on the same rotting log in a forested valley near Bandung in Java, Indonesia and are the only ones I have ever seen. I look forward to hunting for them again one day!
