so recently, I posted a thread reguarding the breeding of stag beetles, much to my disappointment, I did not recieve all that many replies. But I have since gotten them to mate and it's been a couple weeks now and upon checking up on the females earlier today, I noticed that their behavior has changed radically. They are lethargic and respond to stimuli slowly, but they are still capable to running etc. I also noticed that they had a swelling of the abdomen which I either hadn't noticed before, or just appeared recently. Based on my other image of them when they were mating, it seems that it is the latter. Could this be a sign of pregnancy? I've attached the image, so that you can have a look for yourselves since I'm no expert on the matter.
Stag beetle pregnancy
- Thread starter Defalt
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oh, and one more thing, I fear that the depth of substrate I used my not be enough, I have attached another image of how deep it is, if necessary, I could set up a new enclosure with a lower surface area so that they would have more vertical depth to burrow
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If they are gravid, congratulations! I can't really tell from that picture how deep your substrate is, but when trying to encourage egg laying, there's no such thing as "too deep." I haven't raised stags, but I did try my hand with some wild-caught Dynastes grantii that I collected last fall. I put them in BIG Rubbermaid storage totes (20+ gallons - I pulled off the labels and don't remember the exact size) filled about 2/3 to 3/4 with a mix of dirt and wood mulch, and I have larvae now so it must have been adequate.
actually, the issue I was concerned with was that I added too little substrate, but I appreciate your take on this. Judging by the sounds I am hearing, they seem to be burrowing and chewing on the substrate a lot. I really hope that it turns out that they are in fact gravid
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That was actually what I meant: if you are concerned that you don't have enough substrate, add more! There really is no such thing as too much substrate for these guys. They like it deep.