How am I known? I am also known as dung chafer or tumblebug. What I am known for is my dark black body with a metallic lustre that is copper or green in colour.
Why am I popular? I eat dung and am a farmer’s friend! Yes, I chew dung to “nothing” that is easy to digest for other organisms that share my habitat. I am also popular through the movie “MUMMY” where you see me as “scarab” that is a terror attacking in multitude showing that I am symbol of Egyptian Civilization.
Where do I live? Cold or dry weather like desert, prairies, farms, forests and grass lands. These are the habitats and they are omnipresent all over the world except for the continent of Antarctica. They feed on excreta of herbivores, in particular, and omnivores, and also on mushrooms, decaying leaves and fruits. There is a carnivore dung beetle, Deltochilum valgum, in South America that feeds on millipedes.
Dung beetles sense the presence of dung, capture the dung in small balls and take the dung ball to their burrow in a straight line and bury them inside the ground. They prefer carrying the dung ball in a straight path across all obstacles on the way and the possibility of getting stolen by other dung beetles. They maintain the path of travel in accordance with the moonlight.
Do you know the weight of dung carried by the dung beetle? They carry dung that weighs 50 times their own body weight. What’s more? A male Onthophagus taurus dung beetle carries dung that is 1,141 times more than its body weight ≡ a normal person pulling a double decker bus full of people.
Why do they carry these dung to their burrows? Stores food or Mating! If the beetle is going to store food you will find a single beetle struggling with the dung ball and if you find two beetles carrying across a dung ball, one being a male and other being a female, then is part of the mating process – “rolling process”. Later they use these dung balls to mate underground, work on preparing brooding ball and lays eggs to breed larvae. The larvae feeds on the nutrients from this brooding ball and thrives until independent.
There are two more varieties of dung beetle than the rollers: Tunnelers, jump into the dung and dig a ball right down into the ground and Dwellers, jump onto the top of a dung and make themselves comfy.
No comments:
Post a Comment