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Lucanus cervus pupal stage
The great stag beetle Lucanus cervus spends a relatively short time in the pupal stage which is the most vulnerable time of its life.
In the wild, when a stag beetle larva is fully grown, it will leave the decayed wood where it has been feeding and build a safe place to pupate. Mostly the larva migrates into the soil in the vicinity of the stump or other dead wood where it fed and there it will start to build a cocoon where it will pupate. By the way, this stag beetle together with Lucanus barbarossa are the only European stag beetles that pupate in the soil [1].
Understandably, it is its least known life history stage compared to the larval and adult stages.
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Male Lucanus cervus pupa ready to eclose. Note the very thin skin enveloping the dark coloured adult inside it; compare it with this one. Photo by Maria Fremlin, 20 August 2010.
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[1] - Jeremias, X. & Escolà, O. (2003). Nuevos registros de Pseudolucanus barbarossa Fabricius, 1801 (Col., Lucanidae) en Cataluña, y algunas observaciones sobre su biología. Bol. SEA,
32: 99-103.
Links:
For more about Lucanus barbarossa visit Ángel Martínez García webpage, 2011. http://sites.google.com/site/elcerambyx/home/lucanus-barbarossa
The emerging scene of Lucanus maculifemoratus, Japanese stag beetle.
Last modified: Fri Sep 9 13:17:10 BST 2011
| Main | Stag beetle life cycle |