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dung beetle
(redirected from Dung beetles)

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dung beetle: see scarab beetle scarab beetle or scarab, name for members of a large family of heavy-bodied, oval beetles (the Scarabaeidae), with about 30,000 species distributed throughout most of the world and over 1,200 in North America.
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dung beetle

Any member of one subfamily (Scarabaeinae) of scarab beetles, which shapes manure into a ball (sometimes as large as an apple) with its scooperlike head and paddle-shaped antennae. They vary from 0.2 to more than 1 in. (5–30 mm) long. In early summer it buries itself and the ball and feeds on it. Later in the season the female deposits eggs in dung balls, on which the larvae will later feed. They are usually round with short wing covers (elytra) that expose the end of the abdomen. They can eat more than their own weight in 24 hours and are considered helpful because they hasten the conversion of manure to substances usable by other organisms.
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She is pressured by her mother to pursue an academically impressive internship but instead takes an unusual internship with a small ad agency because she senses she is artistic, not a scientist--unlike her sister who excelled at the same high school and who now studies dung beetles at Columbia.
Shapiro, Laurie Gwen. Brand x; the boyfriend account by Marler, Myrna / Kliatt
Among the 2,000 species of Onthophagus dung beetles, males sport various styles of swooping prongs, with which they wrestle other males for access to females.
Horns vs. sperm: male beetles on tight equipment budget by Milius, S. / Science News
advertisement for dung beetles to clean up piles and piles of poop.
Nicola Davies: Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionable by Carter, Betty / The Horn Book Magazine
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