FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

[03.12.14]

The longest stag beetle species in the world is in my hands again.

It's been 8 years now since I last kept this species. I received a pair today (96mm male) from Alex and I'm hoping to be able to breed them again.

I'll upload the photos later as they're on the computer and I'm on my phone now.

...But here's the unboxing video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcZ3DdTyCZk[/youtube]

Here are the pics:

IMG_1514 by Darkrai283, on Flickr
IMG_1529 by Darkrai283, on Flickr
IMG_1518 by Darkrai283, on Flickr
IMG_1534 by Darkrai283, on Flickr
IMG_1556 by Darkrai283, on Flickr

[18.12.14]

A video of just the male

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxD3I2mPw0g[/youtube]

[21.12.14]

There is some evidence of egg laying... not in the logs but in the substrate.

Female:
Untitled by Darkrai283, on Flickr

Eggs:
Untitled by Darkrai283, on Flickr
Untitled by Darkrai283, on Flickr

[11.01.15]

I had a rummage in the top few centimeters of the substrate to check if the logs had been gnawed into and found 4 eggs.

Untitled by Darkrai283, on Flickr

[04.02.15]

I stumbled across a newly hatched larva while changing the jelly pots.

IMG_2587 by Darkrai283, on Flickr
IMG_2575 by Darkrai283, on Flickr
IMG_2576 by Darkrai283, on Flickr

[08.02.15]

I had a proper dig in the whole laying tank and found 26 eggs and 6 larvae. So in total, I have 10 larvae and 26 eggs so far.

Untitled by Darkrai283, on Flickr

I love stag beetles! I'm raising a native larva right now too- Lucanus capreolus!

OMG ! Those babies are cute!!

Do you feed them anything other than wood and substrate?

SundewWolf wrote:Do you feed them anything other than wood and substrate?

The adults feed on fruit which can very easily obtained but I'm using a specialist beetle jelly from Japan.

The larvae of Prosopocoilus spp. feed on soft-medium decay of white, rotten oak, beech, or sweet chestnut wood but wood (especially oak which is the best for stags) is extremely hard to find here in the UK so to 'increase the volume' of the wood substrate, I add oak leaf mulch. However, this is very low in nutritional content so if they are fed on this mix throughout their larval cycle, the adult males will be very small with minor horns:
(like the adult male on the very right)


... so the larvae need to be transferred to 'Kinshi' (mycelium) bottles once they are larger in order to obtain larger specimens.


But then again, if I were living in Japan (the 'capital' of the countries with beetle hobbysits breed beetles), they have already perfected their breeding substrates and such so I won't have to go through all of this, as they sell ready made substrate and kinshi bottles for beetles in supermarkets.

oh man i am loving your serious of bug photos, please keep them coming !! thank yo so much for sharing

I agree this is really cool I want some now lol could u guys point me in the direction of a place to buy some

Those are so awesome!!! Congratulations on the cute little babies !

Does anyone know how long these beetles live as adults? I just my first pair and I'm not planning on breeding them for a bit.