Bug card No. 2996 of 4,939

New Zealand reticulated stag beetle

Paralissotes reticulatus

Name means: “net-patterned, from the net-like pattern on its back”

Eats: Wood BeetlesForests and woods6 legs

The New Zealand reticulated stag beetle is a shiny black beetle with a net-like pattern on its back. It has wings but cannot fly. It comes out mostly at night.

Lives in

New Zealand, from the Bay of Plenty to Dunedin, under rotting logs

Length

1.3 to 2.2 cm (0.5 to 0.86 in)

including the jaws

Top speed

about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless. Look at it gently and let it walk away.

What does it eat?

Its babies live inside very rotten wood and eat it.

Photo of New Zealand reticulated stag beetle — Picture by Jon Sullivan. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

as long as 4 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 12 seconds

How big is New Zealand reticulated stag beetle compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)

A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

New Zealand reticulated stag beetle about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

It has wings, but they are too small to fly with, so it walks everywhere.

Males and females have jaws of about the same size.

It hides under rotting logs of New Zealand's native trees.

It is mostly out at night, but you may see it in the day when it is wet.

It lives from near the sea up to about 950 metres high.

you asked

Most asked questions about New Zealand reticulated stag beetle

?Can the New Zealand reticulated stag beetle fly?

No. It has tiny wings, but it cannot fly.

?Where does the New Zealand reticulated stag beetle live?

Only in New Zealand, under rotting logs of native trees.

?How big is the New Zealand reticulated stag beetle?

It is about 13 to 22 millimetres long, jaws included.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Paralissotes reticulatus
Named by: Westwood, 1844
Group: Beetles
Family: Lucanidae
Classification: Insecta > Coleoptera > Lucanidae
Lives on: Australia and Oceania
Also known as: New Zealand reticulate stag beetle

Where the facts come from

Paralissotes reticulatus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
Picture by Jon Sullivan. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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