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Stag Beetle
Lucanus cervus the stag beetle is Britain’s largest known terrestrial beetle. This magnificent beetle, famed for its antler-like mouthparts and its wrestling style of combat in the competition for a mate, make it a charismatic and emblematic creature of our times. However, it is most commonly known for its rapid population distribution decline in the last 40 years. Habitat loss and landscape fragmentation and in turn the loss of dead wood habitats have directly contributed to this fact. Other factors such as road-kill and predation by common predators such as foxes, cats, and magpies have also impacted on its decline. In many European countries as well as the UK, the stag beetle has protected status. It is listed on Annex II of the EC Habitats Directive and Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and countryside Act 1981. It is also a UK Biodiversity Action Plan species (BAP). Biology Adults appear during late May to the beginning of August being most active in the evenings. Females lay their eggs in a piece of decaying wood. Stag beetle larvae, which are blind and shaped like a letter "C", feed on rotting wood in a variety of places, tree stumps, old trees and shrubs, rotting fence posts, compost heaps and leaf mould. The larvae have a cream-coloured soft transparent body with six orange legs, and an orange head which is very distinct from the very sharp brown pincers. They have combs in their legs which they use for communication (stridulation) with other larvae. The larvae go through several developmental stages (instars), taking 4 to 6 years to become pupae. The work of entomologist Charlie Morgan during the late 1970s discovered that the pupae of the stag beetle live in the soil for about 3 months, then emerge in summer to awkwardly fly off to mate. Adults only live for a few months feeding on nectar and tree sap. Their slow, lumbering flight, usually at dusk, makes a distinctive low-pitched buzzing sound. The males fly more readily than the females. The modern Italian word for a toy kite cervo volante (and hence the French cerf-volant) may derive from the ancient amusement of flying the beetles on a length of thread.[citation needed] The natural reaction of the beetle to an approaching large object is to remain motionless making them a good photographic subject. Sexually dimorphic, the males have enlarged mandibles and are larger than the females. Although the male's mandibles seem threatening, they are too weak to be harmful. Nevertheless, females can inflict a painful bite. It is the resemblance of the male's mandibles to the horns of a stag, and their use in combat between males, much like with deer, that gives the species its scientific and common names. Sources: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/biodiversity/endangered-species/lucanus-cervus/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucanus_cervus |