Rainbow stag beetle
The rainbow stag beetle is one of the shiniest beetles in the world. It can be green, red, blue or black, and it glows like a rainbow in the light. The males have long curved jaws, and they are the biggest stag beetles in Australia.
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Fun facts
Its beautiful colours fade after it dies, and they are very hard to catch in a photo.
A female can lay up to 50 eggs. They hatch after about 10 to 14 days.
Before it hatches, you can see the little larva inside the egg.
The larvae can take up to three years to grow up inside their rotting log.
It has been the symbol of the insect club of Queensland, the Entomological Society of Queensland, since 1973.
Most asked questions about Rainbow stag beetle
?How big is the rainbow stag beetle?
Males are 24 to 70 millimetres long. Females are smaller, about 23 to 46 millimetres.
?Where does the rainbow stag beetle live?
In the wet tropical forests of northern Queensland, Australia, and in New Guinea.
?What colours can a rainbow stag beetle be?
It can be green, red, blue or black, always with a bright metal shine.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Phalacrognathus muelleri
- Named by
- Macleay, 1885
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Lucanidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Lucanidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- King stag beetle, Magnificent stag beetle, Mueller's stag beetle
Where the facts come from
- Phalacrognathus muelleri (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 No machine-readable author provided. Kugamazog~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims).. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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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