PROSOPOCOILUS SAVAGEI

PROSOPOCOILUS SAVAGEI

This beetle is a shade of orange to brown depending on its range. A black stripe runs down it from its head and pronotum to the bottom of the thorax narrowing as it goes along, the males possess large mandibles for battling for territory and mates and can reach 24-65mm. A female will be 21-31mm, the larvae are a creamy yellow and feed on rotten wood. They reach around 25-36mm in length and are voracious eaters taking a year to reach the pupal phase and 4 months to pupate. The adults live for around 8 months in captivity and most likely live less in the wild, they feed on ageing fruits and tree sap.

Stag beetles is a family of about 1,200 species of beetles in the family Lucanidae, currently classified in four subfamilies. Some species grow to over 12 centimetres, but most to about 5 cm.

The English name is derived from the large and distinctive mandibles found on the males of most species, which resemble the antlers of stags.

Male stag beetles are known for their over size mandibles used to wrestle each other for favoured mating sites in a way that parallels the way stags fight over females. Fights may also be over food, such as tree sap and decaying fruits. Despite their often fearsome appearance, they are not normally aggressive to humans.

The larvae feed for several years on rotting wood, growing through three larval stages until eventually pupating inside a pupal cell constructed from surrounding wood pieces and soil particles.