Hello my friends, do you know what kind of insect is this?
My three year old child certainly knows it 😉.
She calls the bug shown in the picture "Mama-stag beetle", exactly… that's actually the female of a stag beetle (lat. Lucanus cervus)
The male beetle has a pair of large antlers.
So I hope that you will recognize this insect as well, even though it is getting rarer and rarer here in Germany.
The stag beetle is classified as endangered in Germany because its habitats have been reduced very much.
This beetle lives for about 7-8 years, whereby the largest part of its life is spent as a larva. As an adult it lives only a few weeks to find a partner and mate.
From the picture you can see the ratio between the fingers of my daughter and the beetle, the beetle is really big.
I think it was at least 5 cm long, but our little one was not afraid at all. Even though the mandibles are impressively large. It will certainly hurt if it pinches.
But the stag beetles are harmless. They only eat dead wood, so vegetarians anyhow 😊.
We saw this beetle a couple of days ago on the sidewalk. Fortunately we did not step on it by accident.
We were on our way back and already close to our house, so I brought it home with the help of big leaves which were plenty to be found on the floor.
The road is much too dangerous for this small creature, there are cars and even buses driving all the time and the sidewalk is not harmless either.
Our garden is much safer and offers enough food, because we even had left a high pile of wood there for many years 😊.
We also have a walnut tree, the favourite place of his conspecifics.
(If we would have gone into the direction of the forest, I would more likely to have brought it to the forest).
In order to not let it be seen and pecked by the bird right away, I first put the beetle in a box filled with leaves on the terrace and we (me and my daughter) take care of him before setting it free later on when the night comes.
Daddy had to participate in an online chess tournament, so he didn't accompany us anymore in taking care of this fascinating insect 😅.
When it was already dark I took the beetle to the hazelnut tree together with the little Kobold, then I put my daughter to bed afterward.
I could only hope that the beetle could find its niche in our garden.
I really did not expect that our little one would go into the garden the next morning (that was last weekend) immediately and look for the beetle.
She was crying because she couldn't find it anymore… Oh No… 😅.
What should I do LOL?
Luckily my child is a reasonable child. She calmed down relatively quickly when I explained that the beetle must hide from birds.
Otherwise it would be eaten, dead.
That's why we couldn't see it anymore either.
Afterwards I offered her as a substitute to watch the beetle in a YouTube video.
So she was quickly happy again 😊.
She was very fascinated when she saw the fight between the impressive "Daddy stag beetles".


So…let's hope that the "Mama-stag beetle" will find a partner soon 😊.
See you soon and thanks in advance for your upvotes, ciaoooo!