Lesser stag beetle
The lesser stag beetle is a shiny black beetle with strong jaws. The males have jaws a bit bigger than the females, but not the giant antlers of some other stag beetles. It loves old, soft, rotting wood and often sits in the sun on tree trunks.
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Fun facts
The males have little knobs at the end of their feelers.
Its larvae grow up in just 1 to 2 years. Larvae of the big stag beetle can take up to 7 years.
A grown-up lesser stag beetle can live for up to 2 years. That is very long for a beetle.
It can fly, and on summer nights it sometimes comes to outdoor lights.
Mothers lay their eggs in rotting wood, so the babies have food all around them.
Most asked questions about Lesser stag beetle
?Does the lesser stag beetle bite?
It has strong jaws, but it is harmless to people if you leave it alone.
?How big is a lesser stag beetle?
It is about 2 to 3 centimetres long.
?What does a lesser stag beetle eat?
Grown-ups drink tree sap and juice from fallen fruit. The larvae eat soft rotting wood.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dorcus parallelipipedus
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Lucanidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Lucanidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Dorcus parallelipipedus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Brunei. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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