European stag beetle
Lucanus cervus
— Where the name comes from
Lucanus derives, according to Pliny, from Lucania, the region where these beetles were used as amulets; cervus is Latin, “stag”, from the male’s mandibles, branched like antlers. The common name repeats the image: a “stag” that flies. It is the largest beetle in Europe.
— Facts
- Group
- Insects · Insecta
- Order
- Beetles
- Habitat
- Broadleaf woodland, especially old oaks and dead wood
- Range
- Europe
- Size
- 3–8 cm for the male, mandibles included
- Diet
- Sap and ripe fruit as an adult; the larva eats dead wood
- Lifespan
- The larva lives years; the adult a few weeks
— Characteristics
- 01
The male’s huge “antlers” are hypertrophied mandibles, used to wrestle rivals.
- 02
The larva lives up to six years in dead wood before becoming an adult.
- 03
The adult lives only a few weeks, long enough to mate.
— What sets it apart
The stag beetle’s “antlers” are mandibles, but so large as to be nearly useless for eating: the males use them to fight, gripping and flipping their opponent like duelling stags, in tournaments on oak trunks. Its life is almost all hidden and extremely slow: the larva gnaws dead wood for years, sometimes six, while the adult flies for only a few weeks in summer. It depends on old trees and rotting timber, and is therefore threatened by our mania for “tidying up” woodland.
