Stag Beetle

True Wild Life | Stag Beetle | A stag beetle is one of more than 1,200 different species of beetle that are natively found in Europe. The stag beetle is the largest species of insect to be found in the United Kingdom, but despite this, the stag beetle is becoming rarer and rarer in much of Britain and is now a protected species in much of it's historic range. The stag beetle is primarily found inhabiting deciduous woodlands and forest across the European continent where there is an abundance of food and plenty of hiding places for this armoured insect. Stag beetle are also becoming a more common sight in parks and gardens that provide artificial replacements of their native habitats.

The stag beetle is Britain's largest and most distinctive insect as some individuals can reach more than 10cm in length. The hard, armoured shell of the stag beetle provides it's body with immense protection and is split into three parts (as with other insects) to give the stag beetle greater agility when moving around. The most distinctive feature of the stag beetle is it's long antler-like pincers which protrude from the head of the stag beetle. The pincers of the male stag beetle are often considerably larger than those of the female are primarily used for holding onto prey. Stag beetles also have wings that are protected by their shell when not being used, allowing the stag beetle to fly away if it feels threatened.

Stag beetles are omnivorous animals, but they eat a predominately vegetarian diet. Decaying wood, leaves, nectar, fruits and flowers are all stable foods in a stag beetle's diet along with smaller insects when other food sources are not as readily available. Despite their protective body armour, stag beetles are preyed up by a wide variety of animals throughout Europe. Bats, birds, rats and other rodents are the main predators of the stag beetle along with cats and dogs, and other larger mammals such as foxes.

Stag beetles usually begin to breed when the warmer summer weather emerges, and once hatched, the stag beetle larvae remain in their infant form from a few months to a few years. The stag beetle larvae feed on rotting wood and change to nectars when they become adults. Once fully developed, adult stag beetles have a short lifespan only getting to a few months older. Today, primarily thanks to habitat loss, the stag beetle is one of the world's threatened species and is therefore protected throughout it's natural range but particularly in the UK where the stag beetle is becoming rarer and rarer.

Ladybird

True Wild Life | Ladybird | The ladybird (also known as the ladybug) is a small colourful beetle found all around the world. There are thought to be more than 5,000 different species of ladybird in the world, with more than 450 species found in North America alone. The ladybird is best known for it's spotted body (normally red and black, but often orange and yellow are found), and their ability to rid gardens of their aphid pests affectively. It is thought to be good luck to find that a ladybird has landed on you, and most definitely bad luck if you then squash it!

Ladybirds are small sized insects rarely growing to more than a centimetre in length. Ladybirds have size legs that are black in colour and their brightly coloured shell, protects the wings of the ladybird which are concealed beneath the spots. Ladybirds are known to hibernate once the warm summer weather begins to cool. Ladybirds will hibernate in large groups in sites which are used year after year, and ladybirds are thought to hibernate in this communial fashion in order to increase their chances of surviving the cold winter. It is thought that pheromones are released by hibernating ladybirds which attract other ladybirds to hibernate in the same place.

Ladybirds are fearsome predators within their environment and are known as gardener's friends as they munch all of the tiny pests that eat the plants. Ladybirds primarily eat aphids, greenfly, plant-lice and other small insects. It is thought that the average ladybird eats more than 5,000 aphids in just one year. Ladybirds are prey to a number of animals in their environment that include birds, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals, rodents and other insects. It is thought that the bright colour of the ladybird is used to deter hungry predators as they think that the ladybird will taste disgusting or is poisonous.

The female ladybird can lay more than 2,000 eggs in one year that hatch in just a few days. The ladybird larvae hatches out of the eggs and looks nothing like an adult ladybird as the ladybird larvae is long in shape and is generally one colour. After a couple of weeks, the ladybird larvae evolves into a ladybird pupa which is about the same size and colour as an adult ladybird but has a protective layer surrounding it, until it has developed it's wings. Once the ladybird pupa has developed, it breaks out of the skin surrounding it to become an adult ladybird. Due to climate changes and habitat loss, the ladybird is now considered to be one of the animal species that is threatened with extinction. It has been noted that ladybirds are particularly sensitive to temperature and will die from dehydration if it is much hotter than it should be.

Hercules Beetle

True Wild Life | Hercules Beetle | The Hercules beetle is one of the largest species of beetle in the world, and is natively found in the jungles of South America. The Hercules beetle is the largest and most well known of all of the rhinoceros beetles, a group of large beetles that are closely related to the famous scarab beetle. The Hercules beetle is found throughout the tropical jungles and rainforests of Central and South America, where the Hercules beetle spends the majority of it's time foraging through the leaf-litter on the forest floor in search of something to eat. The fallen debris also helps to hide this enormous insect as it moves about.

There are thirteen known species of Hercules beetle found in the jungles of South America and the Hercules beetle was named for it's sheer size as some males have been known to reach nearly 7 inches in length. Although it is quite rare for these beetles to get quite so big, the average adult Hercules beetle is usually between four and fifteen centimetres long depending on the species. The most distinctive feature of the Hercules beetle has to be the enormous horn-like pincers which protrude from the forehead of the males. These horns can grow longer than the Hercules beetle's body and are mainly used for solving disputes with other male Hercules beetles. Female Hercules beetles do not have horns but their bodies are thought to be larger, but shorter than their male counterparts.

The Hercules beetle is an omnivorous animal but it;'s diet both in it's larvae and adult stages, is primarily made up of decaying plant matter. Rotting wood is the favoured meal of the Hercules beetle, along with fruits and other plant matter and the occasional small insect. The Hercules beetle is said to be the strongest creature on earth for its size, able to carry 850 times its own body weight but these enormous insects are still hunted by numerous animals throughout the jungles of Central and South America. Bats, rats and birds are the main predators of the Hercules beetle along with reptiles and omnivorous mammals.

The larval stage of the Hercules beetle will last one to two years, with the larva growing up to 4.5 inches in length and weighing up to 120 grams. Much of the life of the Hercules beetle larva is spent tunnelling through it's primary food source of rotting wood. After the larval period, transformation into a pupa, and moulting occur, with the Hercules beetle then emerging as an adult. Today, the Hercules beetle is threatened as much of it's natural habitat has been lost to deforestation or been affected by both air and water pollution.

Beetle

 

True Wild Life | Beetle | The beetle is a small sized invertebrate that is known to be incredibly versatile and is found in numerous different shapes and sizes. Beetles are found in nearly every different habitat on Earth and are only absent from the freezing polar regions. The beetle has the largest number of sub-species out of all the insects, with 40% of all recognised insects being classed as beetles. There are more than 350,000 different species of noted beetle, however, scientists estimate the real number is between 4 million and 8 million beetle species.

 

 

As with other species of insects, the body of the beetle is comprised of three sections all coated in the hard outer shell, which are the head of the beetle, the thorax of the beetle and the abdomen of the beetle. Beetles also have antennae which are used to understand the surroundings of the beetle and are made of about 10 different sections. Beetles are believed to play a vital role in whichever ecosystem they are inhabiting mainly as they consume the debris from plants and animals including fallen petals and animal dung. All animals that ingest decomposing material are working wonders for the soil as they are consuming a large proportion of the compounds that would otherwise be absorbed into the soil, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

 

The beetle is an omnivorous animals and feeds on whatever it can find but generally plants and fungi and the debris from both plants and animals. Some bigger species of beetle have been known to eat small birds and even small species of mammal. Other species of beetle feed of the dust from wood and therefore enjoy burrowing themselves into trees. Due to their small size and wide, diverse range, beetles are prey to numerous species of animal from other insects to reptiles, birds, fish and mammals. The exact predators of the beetle however are largely dependent on the size and species of the beetle and the area in which the beetle inhabits.

 

Recently, the Asian long-horned beetle has been found in number of North American states with the beetle having quickly gained a name for itself as an agricultural pest. The Asian long-horned beetle is a type of bark boring beetle which means that they dig themselves into wood.