Another Nice Surprise!
29th June 2009, MondayOn the 21st of June, I posted an article about a female Lesser Stag Beetle (see here) that had (I assumed) been attracted to the moth trap, the first record for the reserve. Yesterday I was sitting relaxing in the garden when I saw another ambling towards me! This turned out to be a male, with a more massive head and thorax and larger mandibles. Larvae of those species which live in dead wood tend to take several years to develop, and I suspect that these have emerged from some firewood which was brought in from Pannel Valley three or four years ago and has now become very rotten.
Male Lesser Stag Beetle