Stag beetle, Odontolabis sommeri

Black in front, with plain tan wing cases and short toothed jaws; found in the morning under a homestay veranda light in Kampung Kinasaraban, Kundasang, 22 October 2026; size not measured; one record on this site

The stag beetle from above on a pale speckled table: black head with short toothed jaws, dark red-brown shiny thorax rimmed with orange, plain tan wing cases with a thin dark line down the middle. — 09:18:29, from above.

The beetle from the side with its head raised and jaws open. — 09:33:01, head raised, jaws open.

The beetle from the front: the two short, curved jaws with a row of teeth on the inner edge. — 09:33:28, the toothed jaws.

The beetle on its back: red-brown underside and legs, a patch of orange hair under the head. — 09:21:57, the underside.

The beetle from above at another angle, legs spread. — 09:20:02, another view from above.

The veranda of the homestay: beige floor tiles with the beetle small in the middle, a wall and a doorway behind. — 09:16:34, where it was found: the veranda floor.

All six cropped and reduced from the photographer's frames; nothing else changed. Photos 1–5 were taken on a plastic dining table near where the beetle was found. Panasonic DMC-LX5, daylight, no flash.

Record 1 — Kampung Kinasaraban, 2026

Date	Thursday 22 October 2026, in the morning; photos 09:16–09:35 (camera clock)
Place	The veranda of a homestay in Kampung Kinasaraban, Kundasang, Ranau District, Sabah
Found	On the tiled veranda floor, under a light that was left on all night. Several flying insects came to the light, and most were still there in the morning; this beetle was the largest.
Behaviour	Resting, not moving. It did not fly away; the smooth tiles were too slippery for its claws.
Number	One
Sex	Probably a male (broad head, large toothed jaws)
Size	Not measured
Afterwards	Photographed on a plastic dining table nearby, then released into the homestay's flower garden
Observer	Wong Fook Yee
iNaturalist	observation 411515083

Jaws of different shapes

Male Odontolabis do not all have the same jaws. A 2018 study at the Natural History Museum, London, described four male forms in two Odontolabis stag beetles, one of them Odontolabis sommeri lowei: the largest males with the longest jaws, a second fighting form with a smaller head, the smallest males with short jaws, and a newly named form with stout "bolt-cutter" jaws. Which form this beetle is has not been checked.

Identification

Order Coleoptera · Family Lucanidae (stag beetles) · Subfamily Lucaninae · Tribe Odontolabini · Genus Odontolabis Hope, 1842 · Species Odontolabis sommeri Parry, 1862.

Head and jaws black, finely roughened.
Jaws short and curved, with a row of teeth on the inner edge.
Thorax very dark red-brown and shiny, with a narrow orange rim at the front and orange at the sides.
Wing cases plain tan to yellowish-brown, with a thin dark line down the middle.
Underside red-brown, with orange hair under the head; legs black, partly orange.
Antennae elbowed, ending in a small comb-like club.

The species was given by identifiers on iNaturalist; the photographer's own guess was the genus Odontolabis. Odontolabis has about 61 species and subspecies in South-east Asia; Odontolabis sommeri is listed from Borneo and Sumatra.

Related: Kampung Kinasaraban · Beetles of Borneo · Three-horned rhinoceros beetle, Kampung Sayap, 2022 · Two pairs of wings
Photographs © Wong Fook Yee. Place, behaviour and release are the photographer's own account; photo times from the camera; species from iNaturalist. The small picture used for this record on index pages was prepared by the photographer from photo 1, with the background removed; it looks retouched. Sources: Wikipedia, Odontolabis (genus author, number of species, range of O. sommeri); Wikipedia, Taxonomy of Lucanidae (subfamily and tribe); Natural History Museum, London, "Stag beetles with bolt-cutter jaws", 2018 (male forms). Species page written 29 October 2026.