thumbnail of Lucanus cervus f 1.jpg
thumbnail of Lucanus cervus f 1.jpg
Lucanus cervus f 1 jpg
(445.2 KB, 2000x1600)
thumbnail of Lucanus cervus f 2.jpg
thumbnail of Lucanus cervus f 2.jpg
Lucanus cervus f 2 jpg
(420.66 KB, 2000x1600)
More insect rescue!
After the antlion, we found a female stag beetle in the organic waste trashcan. No idea how it got in there, probably attracted by rotten fruit.
As she was visibly weak, host put the beetle on a squeezed-out orange.  It tried to dig around in the pulp a bit but then wandered off. Maybe it was too dry or sour. In nature these guys feed on tree sap so host supplied some watermelon and that was welcome. That the beetle is black is of course a mere coincidence!

The female stag beetle sunk its mandibles into the sweet flesh of the fruit and stayed like this for an hour while drinking. Then wandered off in the garden. Saw her a day later still wandering around and supplied more watermelon. I was afraid the cats would kill her like they do with most insects but one cat spotted the beetle and immediately looked away pretending it didn't exist. They do that with hedgehogs too. Every cat knows that hedgehogs don't exist!

The reason for that is obvious. While the male stag beetles mandibles are for display and wrestling, the female's are for shredding bark to access sap and deposit eggs in rotted wood. The girls can bite hard and they do!
A month ago host was bitten in the foot while walking in the forest of Nymphenburg Park. A female stag beetle must have crawled onto his trousers and then bit him in the heel as he was wearing sandals. That hurt. No bleeding but still unexpected. I still like them, they're endangered and increasingly rare. Europe's biggest beetle.