Beetle Mania: Stags with Swag 🪲✨"

🌧️ Beetle Mania in Monsoon Beauty 24 - Highlights 🌧️

Today, we're rolling out the red carpet for the high-flying stars of the beetle world—the Stags with Swag! These beetles are anything but ordinary; their English name comes from their impressive, stag-like mandibles, "allegedly resembling the antlers of a stag deer". Those mandibles (pincers) aren’t just for show—they can be as long as their entire body and are used for some serious beetle business.

The family name, Lucanidae, hails from Latin, where "Lucanus" means "from Lucania," an ancient Italian region. So, these beetles are basically VIPs from a historical hotspot.

The large mandibles of Stag beetles are less for cutting food and more for defense and fighting with rivals, or manipulating objects to help digging or nest building.

Cultural Connections:
Stag beetles are cultural celebrities, admired in Japan for their strength and bravery, seen as lucky charms in parts of Europe, and and if the Ancient Greeks wanted a storm summoned the swag of stag beetles brought it.!

Got any cool tales about stag beetles in Indian culture? We’d love to hear them!

Cool Fact: These beetles are like the superman, well ok then, superheroes of the insect world! They can lift objects up to 40 times their own weight—imagine a human lifting a car. With their super-strong mandibles and powerful legs, they’re truly the marvels of nature!

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A Two Banded Stag beetle Prosopocoilus biplagiatus

Family: Lucanidae (Stag Beetles)
Sub-family: Lucaninae
Tribe : Lucanini
Genus & Species: Prosopocoilus biplagiatus

Etymology

Prosopocoilus: This genus name is a bit of a Greek mash-up. "Prosopo-" means "face" and "-coilus" means "hollow." So, "Prosopocoilus" could be loosely translated as "face cavity"—probably because the beetle’s head has some interesting hollows that caught the naming team's eye.
biplagiatus: This species name is a Latin combo. "Bi-" means "two," and "plagiatus" is all about "bands" or "stripes." So, "biplagiatus" translates to "two-banded," which is a fancy way of saying this beetle sports a snazzy striped look.

Observation Details

Observed & Identified by @kapil_chand (Kapil Chand)
Location : Nanakmatta, Uttarakhand 262311, India
Observed on: 14 Jul, 2024
Identifier : @nokbeetles

About Kapil Chand: Kapil Chand is a dynamic student leader entering his first year of undergraduate college. As one of the top observers on iNaturalist Uttarakhand, he has helped to organize a month-long biodiversity observation event at his alma mater Nanakmatta Public School and is also mentoring students from grades 7 to 12 in effective methods of documenting and engaging in citizen science activities.

Follow him on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/kapilchand_39

Here are the other Prosopocoilus biplagiatus beetles on iNaturalist.

See Note on range & distribution records after the 3 beetle sections

An Uncommon Common Red Stag Beetle (Prosopocoilus astacoides ssp. castaneus)

Family: Lucanidae (Stag Beetles)
Sub-family: Lucaninae
Tribe : Lucanini
Genus & Species (sub species): Prosopocoilus astacoides ssp. castaneus* Common Red Stag Beetle

Etymology

Prosopocoilus: from Greek prosopon (face) and koilos (hollow).
Astacoides: from Greek astakos (crayfish) and -oides (resembling).
Castaneus: from Latin castanea, meaning chestnut-brown color. There are many organisms that have castanea or variations of this in their name

Observation Details

Observed by : @Bon Pradhan
Location : Darjeeling, West Bengal, India
Observed on: 25 Jul, 2024
Identifiers : @nokbeetles and @takahasi55
Bon Pradhan's social media links :
https://www.instagram.com/himalibugs/
https://www.instagram.com/bon.pradhan/

On Inaturalist India, it seems, this Uncommon Common Red Stag Beetle has been recorded just 4 times and only in the Himalayas in West Bengal, Sikkim and Uttarakhand. and additionally 19 all only in Asia.

A Chestnut-winged Stag Beetle (Neolucanus castanopterus)

Family: Lucanidae (Stag Beetles)
Sub-family: Lucaninae
Tribe : Odontolabini
Genus & Species: Neolucanus castanopterus*

Etymology

Neolucanus: from Greek neo- (new) and Lucanus (a genus of stag beetles).
Castanopterus: from Latin castanea (chestnut) and Greek pteron (wing).
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#### Observation Details
Observed by : @rajkoranga
Location : Munsyari, Uttarakhand, India
Observed on: 30 Jul, 2024
Identifiers : @nokbeetles and @f_rouvroix

Raj Koranga on Social Media

https://www.instagram.com/rajulaxmi.koranga/
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On Inaturalist , there are 48 records with 36 recorded in India : Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand Sikkim, West Bengal, Sikkim, & Nagaland

Note on numbers, range & distribution:

Please be aware that iNaturalist contains only the records contributed by its users, so the range maps and population data provided are partial and may not fully represent the entire species distribution. Other researchers and scientists may also publish their records on different platforms.