Lucanus elaphus

[DeadInTheBasement]

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.

 

[happy1892]

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.