This beetle belongs to the family Passalidae, a close relative of scarab beetles. This recently discovered species from the Darien province of Panama was described and illustrated by Dr. Chris Marshall.

The family Passalidae is represented in the United States by two species which look very similar to the beetle above. One is extremely common east of the Mississippi River from Florida to New England while the other is restricted to a small part of Florida.

Dr. Marshall began the illustration by using pencil line sketches, scanned those into a computer, and used them as templates in illustrating software. Continuous shading was obtained using various smoothing functions of the software.