Company Profile
Welcome to the website of an Antler Crazed Fool. The idea of becoming an insect dealer has long been a dream of mine. My love of Stag Beetles goes back many years. I remember, as a young child, sitting at a table with a large book, the CSIRO's Insects of Australia. The memory involves the book being opened to it's centre colour plates and in particular, an artist's depiction of the Rainbow Stag Beetle, Phalacrognathus muelleri. I remember on many occasions studying this picture and being carried away, by a young boy's imagination, to the jungles of North Queensland.
As a young man I soon joined the Australian military and elected to be posted to North East Queensland. I still remember collecting my first Phalacrognathus and shaking with excitement as I held the stag beetle. Many years followed with foreign military deployments and finally after twenty two years of military service, I seized an opportunity to leave the military and relocated myself in the Atherton Tablelands.
Life today involves both a Stag Beetle captive breeding program and the continuing growth of a foreign collection. Being a private collector, I fully understand the mentality of the collector. The appreciation of form, symmetry and beauty. I also, willingly, allow myself to be consumed by this thing, this passion, that overwhelms the collector.
So it is with great pride and joy that I finally realise a boy's dream, a website concerned with the sale of rare, equatorial, antlered beetles.
THE BUSINESS
The business is located in the high country of the Atherton Tablelands, an upland area of jungle, mists and unrelenting rain. The focus of the business is two fold:
-
One, to legally captive breed certain Australian species for sale, selectively isolating genes for both size and colour forms.
-
Two, stock acquisition, with travel to remote regions of SE Asia and Indonesia, the collection focus being the genera Cyclommatus, Allotopus, Dorcus and Rhaetulus.
CAPTIVE BREED PROGRAM
Established for some years now, the licensed program concentrates on breeding both Phalacrognathus and Lamprima with hopes of expanding the species list in future.
PHALACROGNATHUS MUELLERI
The Phalacrognathus program in currently producing both normal (Opal) and green (Emerald) colour forms (achieved over many generations) with expectation of a black form (deep purple), currently breeding, in near future.
Emerald form P. muelleri, captive breed
The program is also achieving a high percentage of large form (teleodant) males, with hopes of eventually achieving a new world's largest, the current record being a reported 69mm.
Mainland/Tasmanian Lamprima
Australian mainland Lamprima consist of L. latriellii (Qld, NSW), L. aurata (NSW, ACT, Vic, Tas), L. varians (West Vic, SE. SA) and L. micardi (SW. WA).
The northern L. latrielli achieves a beautiful shining, metallic green, while it's southern sister species, aurata, obtains more of a red-gold colour. L. latriellii also demonstates an intriguing phenomena, achieving the L. latriellii mandibularis form, restricted to the Cairns region in the far north. This Cairns form is very similar to the PNG/West Irian Lamprima adolphinae, with long, up-swept mandibles. L. aurata from Tasmania is found demonstrating a lovely purple colour in the male, a trait not demonstrated by mainland aurata which maintain a consistant red-gold. L. varians, which I strongly suspect to be a cline of aurata, obtains a bronze-purple colour while the western representative, L. micardi, achieves a stunning metallic gold with the male!
It is my intention to eventually captive-breed large examples of all Lamprima species mentioned here as additions to the stock available on this web-site.
Expeditions, Borneo and Irian
The acquisition of rare Lucanidae examples, particularly rare Cyclommatus, requires the negotiation of remote mountains in both Borneo and West Irian.
Target species include:
-
the Borneo Cyclommatus species: C. chewi, C. montanellus, C. magnificus (I strongly believe the C. murutiorum from Western Sabah to be the eastern range of a C. magnificus cline, the cline occuring throughout Kalimantan, Sarawak and into Western Sabah, ie: C. murutiorum = C. magnificus) and finally the unique C. tarandus from West Sarawak/NW Kalimantan.
-
the West Irian Cyclommatus species: C. imperator, C. splendidus and C. monguilloni.
Key Words
Cline: a gradual change in form/appearance within the range of a species
Comparison Photos
Cyclommatus magnificus vs Cyclommatus murutiorum
Cyclommatus magnificus Cyclommatus murutiorum
(Kalimantan) (West Sabah)
Adapted from Mizunuma & Nagai Adapted from Insect-Sale.com
This project, the collection of rare Borneo and Irian Cyclommatus, requires a long term commitment and I intend to build upon this site, outlining the expeditions undertaken as well as, of course, offering some remarkable specimens. Please follow my ACF web-site, over the coming years, as I intend to take you to remote Borneo and Irian, climbing into cloud forest, trekking remote mountains and sharing the adventure with many photos.
The current stock available with my ACF web-site includes a strong representation of Rhaetulus, Dorcus and Allotopus genera from previous foreign collecting trips and dealings.
The future goals of the ACF web-business are to:
-
focus on acquiring material from the Borneo/West Irian regions and
-
to continue developing the captive-breed program, increasing it's available species list.
I hope you enjoy navigating through the site, hopefully finding that specimen you've been wanting, kind regards, an antler crazed fool, Steve.
LIVE YOUR DREAMS!
