Stag beetle | Bugman Jones

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Anatomically correct — a challenge is issued

Posted on June 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

Perhaps there is nothing more smart-arse than the spiteful sci-fi critic piping up from the back of the room “Well, that’s scientifically impossible”. We’ve all done it. But some of us keep doing it, and it’s usually a derisory sneer at an insect drawing along the lines of “Well, that’s not anatomically correct”.

An uncertain number of legs, a hazy knowledge of wing or body morphology and a cavalier disregard for antennal structure are the usual fails. It’s just not good enough.

So here is my challenge. If I can do a passably identifiable image using pancake mix, then I expect anyone else to do at least as good.

Anything less is unacceptable.

Jewel beetle — elegantly tapered elytra distinctive of the family Buprestidae.

Preying mantis — OK this one looks a bit like a pugilistic kangaroo mantis.

Odontaeus armiger — stout shape, short stout legs, but elegant backwards produced horn.

Wind scorpion or solifuge — head and thorax shape the most important characters.

Wing map of Tephritis cometa — that really is a comet-shaped star mark.

Stag beetle — this is an easy one.

Head louse — show those hair-gripping claws.

Brown shieldbug nymph — early instars of Coreus marginatus show this bizarre bulbous abdomen and over-large thickened antennae.

Earwig — more than just pincers.

Woodlouse — uropods a good character.

Centipede — leg number less important than leg proportion.

Millipede — leg number less important than proportions and sinuosity.

Crab — this is as close to verging-on-the-cartoon that I will accept.

Harvestman — the right number of legs, and a distinct dorsal abdominal mark.

False scorpion — OK, the legs could be a bit longer, but I’m prepared to give some latitude.

Dumbledor — stout and broad, but domed pronotum and small scutellum still visible.

Cockchafer (no silly childish jokes) — flabellate antennae and pronounced pygidium (tail segment).

Rose chafer — pay attention to pronotal shape and make sure the scutellum is visible.

Default bee-type thing — large front wings and small hind wings.

Ant — triangular head, narrow thorax, bulbous abdomen, geniculate antennae.

Rhododendron leafhopper, Graphocephala fennahi, I really need green for this one, but you get the idea.

Inspiration from the feline at my feet in the form of one of his fleas.

Lobster moth caterpillar, surely the ugliest insect, but still a damn tasty pancake.

Water scorpion, Nepa cinerea, though breathing tube siphon is a bit stout.

Graphosoma italicum is a shieldbug to look out for on brownfield sites, just a vagrant so far in the British Isles

Hawthorn shieldbug, Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale, showing the dominant scutellum plate.

Fluffy is difficult, but at least the proportions of the bee-fly, Bombylius major, are right, and the proboscis.

The wings of the thistle stem gall fly, Urophora cardui were a bit of a challenge, and I was running out of batter, so here’s the gall instead.

And still, the stag beetles keep coming

Posted on July 21, 2012 | 3 comments

I have a firm memory of my first stag beetle. I must have been about 5. We were on a family holiday to Littlehampton and one day were walking around Swanbourne Lake in nearby Arundel Park. A man had waded into a swathe of long grass to recover a football, but was crying out in panic (he may actually have been waving his arms about in the air) — a large male stag beetle was clinging to his jeans, just below the hips. My father strode in, gently picked up the beetle and held it out in the palm of his hand for all to see.

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It’s been a particularly good year for stag beetles so far. In East Dulwich, in 2012, we have been positively awash with them.

Yay, the first stag beetle of the year, 30 May 2012.

Since the first on 30 May, we’ve had a continuous procession of them. The females started to appear on June 10. They seem more reluctant to fly than the males, and are more likely to be found scuttling across the patio. Females are reported to be more often found squashed than males. Someone suggested that although the males, with their distinctive antlers, are recognizable to a non-specialist general public as stag beetles, the small-jawed females are perhaps mistaken for cockroaches and deliberately targeted by crushing feet. There may be something in this, but it may also be because females walk to their egg-laying sites, whilst males fly to their prospective mates.

OK, I posed them on the wooden sleeper edge of the pond, but they were all together in the grass when I found them.

There were four together on the grass near the pond on 19 June. Three males had homed in on a female. What’s the collective noun for stag beetles? A joust? A prong? A pincer movement?

Then, this one today 21 July.

And still they keep shuffling past. This one was at the end of the garden earlier this evening, crawling by the shed. It was covered in mites, mostly on its legs. I’ve an idea that female stag beetles are far longer-lived than the males. I’m guessing that, if this is the case, it is maybe because the females remain mostly hidden, in the leaf litter, laying eggs and staying out of the way; the males on the other hand are more active, and constantly on the look out for mates, so are more likely to suffer injury or death.

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Posted in General Stuff

Tagged Arundel Park, Lucanus cervus, Stag beetle