Jill Irving chose….

Stag Beetles

Growing up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne one of my favourite places to visit was the city's Hancock Museum with its pull-out drawers of fantastic beetles. When I came to work here in Coventry I discovered our own large Natural History collection in the care of a Keeper with a passion for British beetles. As well as their striking appearance, stag beetles which are one of our most endangered species, have a fascinating link with Greek mythology – a musician called Cerambus insulted some nymphs and they turned him into a stag beetle! Other names they have gone by are also colourful – billywitches, oak-ox, thunder-beetle and horse pincher.

I am also a printmaker and natural history is a favourite subject. This is a stylised 'Stag Beetle' done by me and owned by a colleague in the History Centre.

Jill Irving is Conservation Officer (Easel Paintings) at the Herbert

What the curator says:

Stag beetle (Lucanus cervus)

The stag beetle is the largest terrestrial insect in the UK. Its common name is derived from its large jaws that resemble miniature antlers. These are used by males to wrestle each other for mating sites in summer. Females are smaller and have less impressive 'antlers'.

Its Latin name is from the Italian region, Lucania, where these beetles were used as amulets and cervus is from the Latin for deer. 

Stag beetle larvae live underground and can take up to six years to develop. They feed on rotting wood before they pupate and change into adult beetles. The beetles emerge in late autumn and remain underground until the following summer. Once pupated an adult stag beetle cannot grow any more.