The stag beetle (Red Book) is one of the most unusual, amazing creatures that inhabit the planet. The insect fully corresponds to its own name. The head of the beetle is decorated with a pair of large tentacles that remotely resemble horns.
Why is the stag beetle in the Red Book? Where does the insect live? What kind of lifestyle? What does it eat? How does it breed? You can see the photo of the stag beetle from the Red Book, as well as get answers to the above questions by reading our publication.
Habitat
As noted above, the stag beetle is listed in the Red Book. Small insect populations today are supported in a number of European countries. Occasionally, representatives of the species are found in domestic latitudes. A few deer beetles can be seen today in North Africa, Iran.
Such large insects prefer to settle in dense deciduous forests. In Russia, deer beetles live mainly in oak groves. Sometimes representatives of the species live on trees such as linden, pine, beech and ash. These insects populate not only the plains, but also the highlands. So, in the Caucasus they can be found at an altitude of about 900 meters above sea level.
Stag Beetle (Red Book): Short Description
The insect has a massive body, which is represented by a flat head, fleshy abdomen and a dense chest. Beetle wings are protected by large hard elytra. On the head are eyes with a facet structure, a mouth opening, as well as adnexal processes similar to horns. It also contains a pair of antennae formed by individual segments.
The mouth of a stag beetle allows the insect to perform several actions. The tentacles allow the capture of young plant growth. Peculiar horns also act as formidable weapons during fights with relatives for the right to mate with females. Movable jaws are used during the absorption of vegetable juice.
The thoracic part of the body includes the posterior, anterior and middle segments. To each of them is attached a pair of legs divided into segments. The limbs of the beetle end with sharp claws, thanks to which the creature is able to firmly cling to a wide variety of surfaces.
Dense large elytra act as a kind of insect armor, protecting the body from damage. Below them is a pair of webbed wings that serve to fly. There are also special tubular structures that perform the functions of the respiratory organs.
Nutrition
The basis of the diet of the stag beetle is vegetable juices. These insects settle in crevices on the surface of tree bark and absorb nutrient fluids. The beetle is fully saturated only after a few hours have passed. In rare cases, representatives of the species damage the supple shoots of young vegetation with their massive tentacles, and then proceed to a meal.
Breeding
Reproduction of the offspring of a stag beetle occurs in a rather unusual way. Before forming into an adult, sexually mature individual, the larva undergoes a long development cycle, which takes from 4 to 6 years.
Before fertilizing the female, males show belligerence in relation to each other, arranging battles. During the battle, they take a threatening pose and collide with horns, trying to throw the enemy from a tree to the ground. In fact, such fights are not capable of injuring males and leading to their death.
After mating, the female insect reproduces on average about two dozen eggs. For each of them, a female individual prepares a special chamber in advance in the structure of rotten wood. After passing several weeks in such shelters, large larvae of a curved C-shape appear. The latter have a white body color, a massive head with a pair of tentacles and are moved with the help of three pairs of legs, which are located in front of the body.
Larvae gain weight rapidly by absorbing copious amounts of rotting wood. Closer to the completion of the development cycle, a young individual can reach a length of the order of 10-13 centimeters.
Subsequently, the larva falls into suspended animation and passes into the pupal stage. For this, a young individual moves to the ground, where it forms the so-called cradle. In the earth, at a depth of about 20-40 centimeters, the larva wintering takes place. With the arrival of spring heat, a formed stag beetle appears on the surface.
Security status
There is a stag beetle in the Red Book of Russia and numerous European states. In particular, the protected status of an insect has been assigned in countries such as Germany, Denmark, Poland, Belarus, Sweden, Estonia, Ukraine, and Moldova.
What specific measures is the world community taking to preserve the species? In addition to the fact that the stag beetle is listed in the Red Book, scientists are constantly engaged in tracking insect movements and studying the number of its populations. A safeguard measure is also the organization of customers in forest oak forests, where the bulk of the trees are oak trees.
What factors affect the decline in the number of species?
The danger to the Red Book beetle is the following:
- Unreasonable, wasteful human activity. In particular, the destruction of oak massifs in order to obtain valuable wood. Also of negative importance is the clearing of forests from rotten wood, which acts as a food source for insect larvae.
- The growth of the wasp-scopia population. This parasitic insect multiplies, laying its own eggs in the body of the larvae of the stag beetle.
- Representatives of the species prey on numerous inhabitants of the forest, for example, birds such as magpies, owls, and owls. Feathered people like to hunt deer beetles, because these insects have a large, extremely nutritious fleshy belly.
- To a certain extent, the number of representatives of a rare species decreases the activity of people who are fond of collecting insects.