Stag Beetle Sterling Silver Necklace

Stag Beetle Sterling Silver Necklace

Origin: United Kingdom

Material: Sterling Silver (925)

Pendant Approximate Dimensions: 3.5cm x 2.5cm x 0.7cm 

Chain Length: 16" to 18" (adjustable)

Weight: 12g

10% of this purchase will be donated to The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) [EU]

A well-known species in much of Europe is Lucanus cervus, referred to in some European countries (including the United Kingdom) as the stag beetle; it is the largest terrestrial insect in Europe. 

Male stag beetles are known for their oversize mandibles used to wrestle each other for favoured mating sites in a way that parallels the way stags fight over females. Fights may also be over food, such as tree sap and decaying fruits. 

Pliny the Elder discusses beetles in his Natural History, describing the stag beetle: "Some insects, for the preservation of their wings, are covered with an erust (elytra)—the beetle, for instance, the wing of which is peculiarly fine and frail. To these insects a sting has been denied by Nature; but in one large kind we find horns of a remarkable length, two-pronged at the extremities, and forming pincers, which the animal closes when it is its intention to bite."

The stag beetle is recorded in a Greek myth by Nicander and recalled by Antoninus Liberalis in which Cerambus is turned into a beetle: "He can be seen on trunks and has hook-teeth, ever moving his jaws together. He is black, long and has hard wings like a great dung beetle". The story concludes with the comment that the beetles were used as toys by young boys, and that the head was removed and worn as a pendant.

 Several species of dung beetle, especially the sacred scarab, Scarabaeus sacer, were revered in Ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphic image of the beetle may have had existential, fictional, or ontologic significance. Images of the scarab in bone, ivory, stone, Egyptian faience, and precious metals are known from the Sixth Dynasty and up to the period of Roman rule. The scarab was of prime significance in the funerary cult of ancient Egypt. The scarab was linked to Khepri, the god of the rising sun, from the supposed resemblance of the rolling of the dung ball by the beetle to the rolling of the sun by the god. Beetles are mentioned as a symbol of the sun, as in ancient Egypt, in Plutarch's 1st century Moralia. The Greek Magical Papyri of the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD describe scarabs as an ingredient in a spell.

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