Stag Beetle

The stag beetle is a large beetle found across much of Europe and parts of Asia, named for the male's greatly enlarged, antler-like mandibles, which resemble the branching antlers of a stag and can make up a substantial portion of the insect's total body length. Males use these oversized jaws primarily in ritualized combat with rival males over access to females and prime feeding sites on oozing tree sap, wrestling and attempting to flip one another over rather than causing serious injury in most encounters, since the mandibles, despite their size, deliver relatively weak bites. Stag beetle larvae spend several years, sometimes as many as six, developing underground or inside decaying wood before pupating and emerging as adults, which then live for only a few weeks to a couple of months, focused mainly on mating. Because it depends on old, decaying wood and deadwood habitat that has become scarcer as forests are managed more intensively, the stag beetle has declined across much of its range and is now a protected species in several European countries.