One of Britain’s most impressive insects, the stag beetle, is also one of its most endangered, and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) is appealing for volunteers to take part in a fun and innovative new scheme to help them.The stag beetle is our largest terrestrial beetle and is so called because of the male’s huge jaws, which resemble a stag’s antlers.  These insects are completely harmless, but are losing the environment that they need to breed and develop in, decaying and dead wood. Numbers of beetles have already plummeted throughout much of continental Europe, so those in the UK are especially important. 

PTES is asking members of the public to participate in a nationwide project to create breeding grounds for the beetles by burying buckets drilled with holes and filled with wood chippings.  Female stag beetles will hopefully lay their eggs in these buried buckets and stag beetle larvae will develop there for four years before emerging to find mates and breed.  Not only will the buckets give beetles places to develop, but they can also be used as a method of monitoring, so PTES will ask participants to carefully empty out their buckets once a year, sift through the contents and report on the stag beetle larvae found.  More information about the project, including full instructions and registration forms can be found on the PTES website at www.ptes.org  from March 2005 onwards or by calling PTES on 020 7498 4533.

Press release from Peoples’ Trust for Endangered Species

© 2005   Suffolk Naturalists' Society

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