Cyclommatus

Cyclommatus is a genus of the Lucanidae family, also known as the stag beetle. The majority of the species from the genus Cyclommatus are located in Southeast Asia, though some species can be found in China and Taiwan as well. The genus Cyclommatus also consists of three subgenera: Cyclommatus (Parry, 1863), Cyclommatinus (Didier, 1927) and Cyclommatellus (Nagel, 1936). Each subgenera contains 80, 24 and 3 species respectively. In total, the genus Cyclommatus consists of a total of 134 species, though more are still being discovered to this day. The chief distinguishing characteristics of this genus are its impressive mandibles, which can sometimes be as long as its body, as well as its lustrous metallic exoskeleton, which can range from red, brown, green, purple, gold and a rarer blue-black. As such, beetles from the genus Cyclommatus can command a high price from collectors, with a demand for both live and dried specimens. The largest species from this genus is Cyclommatus elaphus, with the largest recorded wild collected specimen being 109.0 mm (4.29 in) in length measured from the tip of the mandibles to the end of the elytra. The first beetle from genus Cyclommatus was described by Jean Baptiste Boisduval in 1835 and was initially given the binomial name Lucanus metallifer. Later in 1863, in 'A few Remarks upon Mr. James Thomson's Catalogue of Lucanidæ, published in the 'Annales de la Société Entomologique de France, 1862',' English entomologist Frederic Parry first suggests the name Cyclommmatus as the name of a new genus in the family Lucanidae, and this has been the name of this genus ever since. Different sources place the genus Cyclommatus under the tribe Cladognathini (Parry, 1870), or Cyclommatini (Maes, 1992). The family Lucanidae is a monophyletic group in which it evolved from a unique ancestor or group of ancestors. Using the BEAST software, which stands for Bayesian Evolutionary Analysis Sampling Trees to model the genetic divergence in Lucanidae, the genus Cyclommatus is thought to have diverged around 50-20 million years ago, with the average being 33.2 million years ago. The temporal range given above is with a 95% highest posterior density (HPD) confidence interval. Cyclommatus can be found in many parts of the world, including: Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.