# Lucanus elaphus



## happy1892 (Aug 31, 2015)

Here is a picture of a Lucanus elaphus pupa I took yesterday.


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## MantisMatt14 (Aug 31, 2015)

Nice looks like a medium sized major male


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## Rick (Aug 31, 2015)

Nice picture. Thanks for sharing. Been years since I've seen one.


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## lilwo (Aug 31, 2015)

Awesome. I'm thinking about getting one in the larval stage


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## happy1892 (Sep 11, 2015)

Here is a female.
















Here is a male that recently emerged:


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## Hisserdude (Sep 25, 2015)

Awesome! Looks like a healthy major male!


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## happy1892 (Sep 25, 2015)

Hisserdude said:


> Awesome! Looks like a healthy major male!


Yep.  

Better images of a pupa. This time a smaller male:


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## CosbyArt (Sep 25, 2015)

Looks like your doing great with them. Nice to see them morphing to adults.  

I'm curious though what are the spiral protrusions on the end of the abdomen?


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## Brunneria (Sep 25, 2015)

CosbyArt said:


> Looks like your doing great with them. Nice to see them morphing to adults.
> 
> I'm curious though what are the spiral protrusions on the end of the abdomen?


That's its penis. lol


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## CosbyArt (Sep 25, 2015)

Brunneria said:


> That's its penis. lol


Ha, guess that his mandibles aren't the only big thing on him lol.


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## Orin (Sep 27, 2015)

Stag species with short mandibles can get closer to the female and don't need the aid. I'm not sure if the allometry is equivalent within specimens of a given species since small males can have short mandibles.


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## happy1892 (Oct 4, 2015)

Female pupa, most likely L. elaphus:


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## happy1892 (Oct 6, 2015)

The same female as in the picture in the above post became an adult the other night.


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## Hisserdude (Oct 6, 2015)

Wow, great set of photos, I wish my camera was that good! Are you going to breed them again?


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## Hisserdude (Oct 6, 2015)

Oops, double post. Sorry.


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## happy1892 (Oct 8, 2015)

Hisserdude said:


> Wow, great set of photos, I wish my camera was that good! Are you going to breed them again?


Thank you.  These guys I caught as larvae I found underneath moist logs on the ground in some woods around here in NC. Yes, I will certainly try to keep these in breeding (my first time trying to breed this species). I am thinking about going out and collecting some larvae again.


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## Sticky (Oct 9, 2015)

They are beautiful! Do the adults eat? If so, what do they eat?


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## happy1892 (Oct 10, 2015)

Sticky said:


> They are beautiful! Do the adults eat? If so, what do they eat?


Yes, they eat bananas, apples, and other fruits as adults. An orange thing comes out from their mouth. In the wild though, this species might eat sap from some types of trees, but I am not sure, at least other species of stagbeetles do that in the wild.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=video&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB8QtwIwAGoVChMIusCI69-4yAIVC3M-Ch3pMwZL&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dmz1kR6CdOzw&amp;usg=AFQjCNEyEz_Gh5HtIXM7Cu90l6g2hJJV6g


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## happy1892 (Feb 5, 2016)

Lucanus elaphus larvae are common here in North Carolina.  I wonder if I'll ever find L. capreolus larvae, or if I already have.

I can find several larvae underneath one log.  These guys below were found underneath a soft rotting fallen pine trunk (loblolly pine?):


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## DeadInTheBasement (Feb 7, 2016)

I am not sure how true it is but I was told by a reliable source that  L. capreolus almost exclusively lay eggs in rotting still standing trees and that the larvae remain there. I have found many L. elaphus larvae on the ground but never a  L. capreolus larvae in my many years of hunting them even though I have confirmed both species being in the area.


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## happy1892 (Feb 7, 2016)

DeadInTheBasement said:


> I am not sure how true it is but I was told by a reliable source that  L. capreolus almost exclusively lay eggs in rotting still standing trees and that the larvae remain there. I have found many L. elaphus larvae on the ground but never a  L. capreolus larvae in my many years of hunting them even though I have confirmed both species being in the area.


Thank you for the information!  I was told by a person who is head of the Arthropod Museum here in the Natural Sciences Museum in Raleigh, NC that he would catch L. elaphus larvae in rotting stumps, but that might be different from still standing trees.  I have never looked for them like that, I just flip rotting logs.  

I once did get a L. capreolus female seem to lay an egg in a branch.  Though I never saw the egg, she dug into the branch and made a lot of sawdust, didn't get any larvae.  I was told by Alan Jeon that he had one or more actually lay their egg on the sawdust on the ground under neath a rotting log (?) rather than packing the egg into the branch with sawdust.


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