News Contents: Darwin’s beetle

2011-04-25

Darwin’s beetle

Chiasognathus grantii

Chiasognathus grantii

Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Family:	Lucanidae
Genus:	Chiasognathus
Species:	C. grantii
Binomial name
*Chiasognathus grantii* Stephens, 1831
Synonyms
See text

Chiasognathus grantii is a species of stag beetle found in Argentina and Chile. It is known as Darwin's beetle, Grant's stag beetle, or the Chilean stag beetle.

Behaviour

The male's oversized jaws are crucial in its objective to climbs trees searching for a female. This searching can go though many metres, until it finds a mate. In this journey, a male will seek out the other males; this is when they need to fight. It uses its jaws in combat as it hooks them under the opposite beetle's wings, pulls up and throws it to the ground (from 20 metres above, as they are in great trees most of the time). Charles Darwin collected the species in Chile during the second voyage of HMS Beagle, and, despite the enlarged mandibles of the males, he noted that the jaws were "not so strong as to produce pain to finger".

Taxonomy and nomenclature

Chiasognathus grantii is one of the seven species belonging to the genus Chiasognathus. It belongs to the subfamily Lucaninae, the largest subfamily in the stag beetle family Lucanidae. C. grantii is also known locally as ciervo volante, cantábria, and cacho de cabra in Spanish and llico-llico in the Mapuche language.