What is this black blob?

Q: I found this on my pool wall and have never seen anything like it before. It looks like a blob with feelers. I think after touching it and finding out it has a shell that it would be in the beetle family. Any ideas?

A: I don’t have a clue! Maybe someone else does.

Here are some guesses that came in:

Looks like a female rhinoceros beetle. Joe B.

Looks like what’s left of a beetle after the juicy body parts were eaten by a predator – just the head and thorax which haven’t completely died yet. Larry K.

It’s all that’s left of Jimmy Hoffa. Dave B.

Possibly a dung beetle, I remember as a kid seeing a bug similar rolling cow dung balls. Robert J.

I believe it is some kind of dung beetle. Luann O.

That black blob is the head and thorax only of a scarab beetle which has very recently been separated from the rest of the body and obviously still alive but not for long. William R.

And the answer is:

This is a Bess beetle (insect family Passalidae), which move slowly, and this video has the antenna sizing and movement about right.  It’s missing its abdomen.  Bill Blum, UGA Extension

see Bess Beetles

One more nature mystery solved!