Iridescent Christmas Beetle from Australia
November 3, 2009
Hi, I’ve seen some recent posts about the brownish Christmas Beetles. Here are some photos of a gorgeous bright green beetle rescued from our swimming pool last summer. We always called these ones Christmas Beetles as kids (ignored the bworn ones), they were highly sought-after. The CSIRO site is fabulous if you know which bit of a beetle is which http://anic.ento.csiro.au/insectfamilies/, but I wouldn’t know a notoplural suture if it bit me (perhaps it has). Can you help? Thanks
Elizabeth
Melbourne, Australia (southeastern seaboard)

Rainbow Stag Beetle or Golden Green Stag Beetle

Dear Elizabeth,
WE aren’t certain, but we don’t believe this is a Christmas Beetle.  We don’t even think it is a Scarab Beetle.  We actually believe it is a Stag Beetle.  We found some matches on a BunyipCo Stag Beetle site.  A Lamprima species looks very close, and there is another image entitled “minor” male King Stag Beetle that also looks close.  Searching Lamprima brought us to the Brisbane Insect website, and a species called the Golden Green Stag Beetle, Lamprima latreillii, and we are happy with that as an identification.  It is also depicted on the Csiro website.

Rainbow Stag Beetle or Golden Green Stag Beetle

Correction:  Rainbow Stag Beetle or King Stag Beetle
Hi
This beetle is a Phalacrognathus Muelleri, commonly known as rainbow or king stag beetle. Both of the picture show females. plenty of info on web about these a commonly kept, i have a breeding pair at moment. hope this helps
Dixiedoo2

Dear Dixiedoo2,
Thanks for the correction.  Interestingly, the Bunyipco Stag Beetle site did not identify the King Stag Beetle by its scientific name.  The Insect Company website has an image of a pair with this information:  “This is possibly the most attractive of all the Stag Beetles with it’s irridescent green sheen. It is not a common beetle in the North Australian Rain Forest where it lives. The females lay their eggs in very specific types of rotten timber on the forest floor. Specimens will occasionally come to ultra violet lights just after dusk. The hour just after dusk seems to be this insects main flight time.” Those interested in raising this lovely beetle may want to reference the InsectaCulture Breeding Report we found online.  YouTube has a video of the beetles in the wild.

Update from Elizabeth
Dear bugpersons,
hi, I’m having trouble navigating the WTB comments section hence the reply email.
First, thanks for the ID on my not-a-Christmas-beetle.  I was thrilled to see it up on the site and really impressed that you could work out so quickly it was not at all what I have always thought it was.  I think you are right and the beastie is (was) a Golden Green Stag Beetle.  Dixiedoo2 is wrong: (1) it was found in Melbourne, not the Far North Queensland rainforest, and as I have seen a fair number of them down here in my lifetime it’s a bit hard to think they were all lost.  (2) They’re common enough for southern schoolkids to know about them, P. Muelleri is described as rare.  (3)  I saw the damn thing and had it clinging to my finger for fifteen minutes.  It did not look anything like any photo I’ve found of either a male or a female Phalacrognathus Muelleri.  It looked a heck of a lot like the images of golden-green stag beetles I found on the web after your reply.  (4) It was approx 15-20mm long, not the 24-45mm cited by various sites for female length.  (5) Colouration was light iridescent goilden-green, dame texture on thorax and back. P. Muelleri looks like it can be quite dark and has a pinkish tinge to its carapace; the throrax is dull and the back extremely shiny.  (6) Mandibles of female P. muelleri are squat and thick, on the specimen I found they were slender.
BTW the photos are of the same animal, once on my hand immediately after rescue and once after release on a tree, so of course both show a beetle of the same gender, whatever that is. This is pretty clear if you lok at the water droplets visible in each photo.
Thankyou.  I feel better now.
Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth,
Thanks for all the additional information, and we are sorry the comment option on our website is problematic.

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Huge freaking beetle
July 23, 2009
Hi!
I was out late at night with my boyfriend when we came across this large creature in a parking lot. My boyfriend wanted to kill it, I suggested we take a picture instead. Since I helped spare the life of this bug I was wondering if you could help identify what exactly it is?? Thank you!
Sarah
Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Reddish Brown Stag Beetle

Hi Sarah,
We are happy that you intervened in your boyfriend’s insecticidal tendencies since we would have been very sad to post your gorgeous Reddish Brown Stag Beetle, Lucanus capreolus, on our Unnecessary Carnage page.

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Another Stag Beetle!
July 15, 2009
THANK YOU for choosing to make the stag beetle your “Beetle of the Month”. Why? Because my wife found one in the bathroom late last night (!), and I had to figure out what it was before either of us could go to bed. Posting an image on your home page made it quick and easy to get back to sleep knowing we didn’t have a martian invader in our home.
Based on some more research, it seems that maybe it’s unusual to find such a creature in NJ–only 12 miles from Manhattan.
Anyway, I didn’t kill the creature. But here is a picture of him trapped in a glass before I let him outside. (Well, first I checked that it wasn’t a poisonous monster.)
Thanks for your hard work on the site. It really was appreciated last night.
Russell Kahn
Montclair, NJ

Reddish Brown Stag Beetle

Hi Russell,
Based on the number of letters we have received with images of the Reddish Brown Stag Beetle, we chose the wrong species as our Bug of the Month.  The Giant Stag Beetle has much more impressive mandibles, but there doesn’t seem to be as many sightings.  We are happy that you were able to identify this close relative based on the image on our homepage.

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Stag Beetle?
July 13, 2009
There were several of these bugs coming out of the ground/grass, where I had noticed holes about the size of quarters a few days prior, at dusk. Are these the giant stag beetles? I think there may be an old tree stump in the ground here.
Heidi
Northeast Ohio

Male Reddish Brown Stag Beetle

Hi Heidi,
Though this is a Stag Beetle, it is not the Giant Stag Beetle, our featured Bug of the Month.  Rather it is a relative in the same genus, the Reddish Brown Stag Beetle, Lucanus capreolus.  This is a male Reddish Brown Stag Beetle as evidenced by his large mandibles.

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