David Rance wrote:
On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 Rusty Hinge wrote:

David Rance wrote:

Aka June bugs. I had masses of them in my compost heap a few years back.

June bugs are stag beetles.

Wrong. Google for June bug and you'll see that it isn't the stag beetle.

Sod google - the stag beetle is a June bug, was a June bug when I were a
lad, and has been since time immemorial.

Do you believe everything you read on the internet?

Now, um, where are we?

However I was wrong is saying that the chafer beetle was the same as the
June bug and you were correct in saying that it is the May bug.

However what I had was certainly the larva of the June bug and I
suspect, from the photo, that that is what Shazzbat has.

The larva of the June bug is a maggot around the size of your thumb,
when it's mature, it can be found in tunnels in rotten wood. The ones
which abounded when I was a nipper ('40s and '50s) lived in old elm
stumps, and rendered them into the semblence of a giant's sponge.

My only beetlebook says they (stag beetles, that is) are often found in
oak or ash woods, and are mainly found in Britain south of Lincolnshire.
Since the book is translated from forn, (Danish, IIRC) I guess that
explains why only a few of the species have 'common names' along with
their posh Latin ones, and that the Lincolnshire reference was put in by
the translator.

IME, they are rarely found north of Suffolk.

--
Rusty