Lucanus cervus
(Linnaeus, 1758) · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Lucanus cervus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation15 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility235 439 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI477 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics481 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
Tree of SexTree of Sex Consortiumgenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Lucanus cervus, the European stag beetle, is one of the best-known species of stag beetle (family Lucanidae) in Western Europe, and is the eponymous example of the genus. L. cervus is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Diet & foraging2
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Lucanus cervus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Lucanus cervus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 225×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database · GoaT · Tree of Sex Database · GoaT · Coleoptera Karyotype Database +1
diploid1×GoaT · Coleoptera Karyotype Database
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Lucanus cervus. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph.
How it livedPBDB
Record type235 440 records
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions18 of 45 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Brussel, BE | 644 |
| SGHNlocation not on record | 246 |
| Vitoria, ES | 180 |
| Brussels, BE | 172 |
| National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Scienceslocation not on record | 154 |
| Zürich, CH | 143 |
| Provincia di Livornolocation not on record | 117 |
| SLU Artdatabankenlocation not on record | 65 |
| NMOKlocation not on record | 53 |
| Natural History Museum Rotterdamlocation not on record | 43 |
| Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciêncialocation not on record | 28 |
| Cambridge, US | 27 |
| Musée des Confluenceslocation not on record | 24 |
| Tilburg, NL | 24 |
| Nijmegen, NL | 20 |
| CIBIOlocation not on record | 18 |
| NCMGlocation not on record | 14 |
| Helsinki, FI | 14 |
| Radicondoli, IT | 11 |
| Banyoles, ES | 7 |
| MZLUlocation not on record | 7 |
| Muzeum i Instytut Zoologii Polskiej Akademii Nauklocation not on record | 7 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 6 |
| Tartu, EE | 5 |
| Lexington, US | 5 |
| LSMlocation not on record | 4 |
| Winterthur, CH | 4 |
| CBDClocation not on record | 4 |
| ZSMlocation not on record | 4 |
| Salzburg, AT | 3 |
| Bavarian State Collection of Zoologylocation not on record | 3 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 3 |
| Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznańlocation not on record | 3 |
| South Kensington, GB | 2 |
| European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT)location not on record | 2 |
| BioFokuslocation not on record | 2 |
| Natural History Museum, Londonlocation not on record | 2 |
| Department of Molecular Biodiversity, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Scienceslocation not on record | 1 |
| IMEDEAlocation not on record | 1 |
| WULS-DFPElocation not on record | 1 |
| Philadelphia, US | 1 |
| Ugentlocation not on record | 1 |
| STOCKHOLM, SE | 1 |
| Private Collection of Dominik Rabllocation not on record | 1 |
| IFR-DNFlocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Lucanus cervus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.