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Rollers are the most famous – they roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or breeding chambers. On the other hand, the rollers transport their prize on the soil surface. Also a species of dung beetle (the African Scarabaeus zambesianus) navigates by polarization patterns in moonlight, the first animal known to do so. The female lays her eggs in the burrow. Tunnelers land on a manure pat and simply dig down into the pat, burying a portion of the dung. Parental care in dung beetles is common, but the extent of care varies greatly from species to species. In Aesop’s fable “The Eagle and the Beetle”, the eagle kills a hare that has asked for sanctuary with a beetle. Dung beetles are currently the only known non-human animal to navigate and orient themselves using the Milky Way. They have impressive “weapons,” some with a large, hornlike structure on the head or thorax that males use for fighting. Australians learned this lesson the hard way when the outback was nearly buried in cattle dung. Dung beetles have been cleaning up the planet for at least 65 million years. The beetle, called Onthophagus taurus, was found to be able to pull a whopping 1,141 times its own body weight, which is the equivalent of a 70 kilogram (150-pound) person lifting six full double-decker buses. Dung beetles can roll up to 10 times their weight. Scarabs often hold a sun disk over their heads. By eating poo, dung beetles may be selecting the cells from the gut wall of the herbivore which made it. If so, you probably did your share of hopping, skipping, and running to avoid painful burns to your feet. A bracelet from the tomb of Tutankhamun featured a bright blue scarab holding a cartouche between its front legs. Checkered beetles are found under bark associated with wood–boring insects or fungus. A pair of dung beetles (a male and a female) may work together, digging a nest to create a burrow. Place the poo at the base of a short tunnel, then retreat to the entrance where you stick your bum in to the air and release a pheromone which alerts nearby female beetles that you have a juicy prize for them. They are found on all continents except Antarctica. When dung beetles do carry or roll the dung away, they do so primarily to feed their young. There is one species which has been shown how to use the stars of the Milky Way as its celestial compass, allowing it to dominate the midnight market in dung transport. The beetle then takes revenge by twice destroying the eagle’s eggs. On a hot day in the Kalahari the soil surface can reach 60°C, which is death to any animal that can’t control its body temperature. Marcus Byrne receives funding from Wits University and the National Research Foundation. But they are fussy eaters, picking out the big bits and concentrating on the tiniest particles, 2-70 microns big (1 micron = 1/1000 of a millimetre), which is where most of the nitrogen in dung is to be found. Sometimes, dung beetles try to steal the dung ball from another beetle, so the dung beetles have to move rapidly away from a dung pile once they have rolled their ball to prevent it from being stolen. Dung beetles have been cleaning up the planet ever since; but what on earth do they do with all that poo? Dung beetles live in many habitats, including desert, grasslands and savannas, farmlands, and native and planted forests. Scientists had long observed dung beetles dancing on their poo balls, and suspected they were looking for cues to help them navigate. Dung beetles are small, and so is their thermal inertia. After capturing the dung, a dung beetle rolls it, following a straight line despite all obstacles. The larger species of rove beetles that can bite are predaceous on fly larvae and are often found on carrion or dung. Heated balls have the opposite effect. Hatching from a single egg inside each brood ball, the larva eats its way around the interior of the ball. A cartouche is an oval frame that encloses a name. Dung beetles eat dung. This group includes many beautiful jeweled beetles, as well as the sacred beetles of ancient Egypt (AKA dung beetles: informative, but rather silly video on the dung beetle here ). But sometimes the males cheat. I guess one thing that drew me to rainbow dung beetles is that I've read they only take a few months to pupate, while other species like D. tityus take much longer, and then only live a few months. 90% of dung beetles tunnel directly beneath the dung pat and make an underground nest of brood balls in which they lay eggs. This is where they became entrenched as an evolutionary adaptation to a successful way of life at the back-end of the food chain. Instead, these coprophages stay close to their fecal finds. One scientist observed 4,000 dung beetles on a fresh pile of elephant scat within 15 minutes after it hit the ground, and shortly thereafter, they were joined by an additional 12,000 dung beetles. But we do know that dung beetles existed around 30 million years ago because paleontologists have found fossilized dung balls the size of tennis balls from that time. Dung beetles very in size from 0.5 centimeters (0.2 inches) to about 6.3 centimeters (2.5 inches) in length. Is there anything cooler than a dung beetle pushing a ball of poo? When you think of a dung beetle, you probably picture a beetle pushing a ball of poop along the ground. Dung beetles have modified wings: the first pair of wings is small and very hard, and acts as a protective covering for the second pair of wings. They make the tunnel, do the head-standing trick to lure a naïve female, who after succumbing to his wiles discovers that males are not to be trusted – even the six-legged versions. They are often attracted by the dung collected by burrowing owls. The tiny insects can orient themselves to the bright stripe of light generated by our galaxy, and move in a line relative to it, according to recent experiments in South Africa. All that is needed is a small ball of poo. Once a dung patty has dried out, it’s less palatable to even the most dedicated poop eater. These interesting beetles fly around in search of manure deposits, or pats, from herbivores like cows and elephants. With that kind of competition, you have to move quickly if you’re a dung beetle. Dung beetles can come in a variety of colors from dull and glossy black to metallic green and red. Recent research at the University of Nebraska suggests dung beetles may be most attracted to omnivore excrement since it provides both nutritional value and the right amount of odor to make it easy to find. With specialized antennae, they can catch a whiff of dung from the air. To avoid overheating while rolling their balls in the blazing midday sun, they climb on top of the ball to momentarily cool off, before hot-footing across the sand looking for shade. Dung beetle nests are provisioned with poop, and the female usually deposits each egg in its own tiny dung sausage. Popular interpretation in modern academia theorizes the hieroglyphic image of the beetle represents a triliteral phonetic that Egyptologists transliterate as xpr or ḫpr and translate as “to come into being”, “to become” or “to transform”. This dung is coarse and crunchy, so the larva has chewing mouthparts not found in the adult beetle, and doesn’t have the luxury of selecting what it can eat or discard, so it eats everything – several times. Scientists group dung beetles by the way the beetles make a living: rollers, tunnelers, and dwellers. Most dung beetles search for dung using their sensitive sense of smell. Dung beetles get theirs from dung. When dung beetles do carry or roll the dung away, they do so primarily to feed their young. University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA. Giving them chilled dung balls from the fridge allows them to roll further before going back onto the ball. They use celestial cues such as the sun or the moon to keep to a straight track away from competitors that might steal their ball.

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