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dung beetle

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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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He's still at a difficult stage," she said some years later to the same friends when I sulked, festering, in the corner of the old caf - with the gloomy resignation of a dung beetle, who had just shut the blinds on his unhappy home.
THE roly-poly priest with [...] by Daily Post (Liverpool, England)
Another name for scarab beetles is dung beetles, because they roll up a ball of dung, move it to a protected place, lay their eggs in the dung, and when the eggs hatch, the beetle larvae eat the dung
The World's Strongest Animal! by umasairam / Science and technology, general community
If the modern dung beetle deserves praise for these global sanitation efforts, then the extinct dung beetles of ancient South America deserve a medal.
30-mln yr old fossilized mega-dung reveals secret ecology of lost ... by Asian News International
 
 
 
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