Dung Beetles

We have many different kinds of Dung Beetles here and all belong to the Scarabaeidae (Scarab) family. They vary in length and color and be anything from 3 to 50mm in length.
Life Span: Up to 3 years.

Description: Some dung beetles are metallic blue and green and also copper in color white others are dull to shiny black in color.

This is a Spider Dung Beetle above....

Habitat: Dung beetles have many different habitats including farmland, grasslands, deserts, and forests.

Countries found in: More than 5000 species of dung beetle can be found in every continent with the exception of Antartica.

Babies: Eggs are deposited in balls of dung. Some species of dung beetles watch over the ball of dung while waiting for the young beetles to emerge. The dung beetle larvae live and feed off the dung ball.

Food: Dung, mushrooms, decaying matter such as leaves and fruit. Dung beetles do not "eat" the dung, but use their mouths to suck the juice from the undigested plant material in the manure.

Interesting Facts:

Dung beetles create dung balls and roll them with their hind legs.

The dung is eaten and also used to deposit eggs.

Dung beetles don't need to eat or drink anything else as they get all the nutrition they need directly from the dung they collect.

Most dung beetles search for dung using their sensitive sense of smell. Some of the smaller species simply attach themselves to the dung-providers to wait for their reward. After capturing the dung, a dung beetle will roll it, following a straight line despite all obstacles. Sometimes dung beetles will try to steal the dung ball of 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 can roll up to 50 times their weight. Male Onthophagus taurus can pull 1,141 times their own body weight: the equivalent of an average person pulling six double-decker buses full of people.