Plural form; beetles or insects possessing club-shaped antennae, often referring to a specific taxonomic group or classification.
From Latin 'clavis' (club) + 'cornu' (horn), used in scientific nomenclature to identify insects by their antenna structure. The plural form appears in Latin-based entomological text.
In older entomology textbooks, scientists actually organized large beetle families primarily by antenna shape before DNA analysis came along, so 'Clavicornes' was treated as a major group name that brought together insects that just happened to look alike but weren't always closely related.
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