The Longest Stag Beetle and Its Captive Breeding and Rearing
By Kay
Brief description of imago
Male imago 48.5-124 mm including mandibles; Female imago 35.5-58 mm. Elongate, somewhat flat. Dull black with blackish anntenae and legs. Male imago's antler-like jaws have small teeth along inner edge and a pair of big teeth in the upper middle, and are slightly forked at end. Head of a large male imago reaches beyond the length of its prothorax and abdomen combined (Mizunuma and Nagai, 1994) (For photos, see GALLERY section).
Habitat
Tropical rain forests (Mizunuma and Nagai, 1994).
Range
Ssp. keisukei is confined to Flores, Lombok, Sumbawa and Tanahjampea Is., Indonesia (Mizunuma and Nagai, 1994).
Occurance time
January-June (Shogakukan, 2006)
Food
The imagoes sap tree juice and the larvae feed on rotten hardwood trees (Mizunuma and Nagai, 1994).
Life cycle
The insect life cycle seems largely unknown in the wild (Mizunuma and Nagai, 1994). Under captive rearing (25 degrees Celsius in summer; 18 degrees Celsius in winter), however, the author has experienced the following:
1) Duration of egg incubation: about 1 month;
2) Duration of larval stages:
Male: 9 or more months (L1: 1 month; L2: 1month; and L3: 7 or more months); and
Female: 4-9 months (L1: 1 month; L2: 1 month; and L3: 2-7 months); and
3) Duration of pupal stage: 1 month.
