Fun faqts about the Dung Beetle:

[Deja Q]

https://mvscience.wikispaces.com/Dung+Beetle?f=print



Common name: Dung Beetle
Scientific name: Phanaeus vindex
Habitat: The Dung Beetle lives in places like deserts, farmlands, forests, and grasslands.
Range: They live on every continent except Antarctica.
Physical Characteristics: The colors of dung beetles vary from black to brown, to purplish yellow to metallic.
Diet: They feed on mushrooms, decaying leaves, fruits, and dung.
Behavior and Adaptations:They sometimes bury the dung and live in it.
Reproduction: The male gives the female some dung, if accepted they are mates, if not the female drives out the male. The female stays with the ball and her "grub"for 2 months, cleaning it and removing fungi and bacteria.
Relationship to People: When the dung beetle buries the dung it fertilizes the ground.
Status:The Dung Beetle is common.
History: It is believed that the Dung Beetle's ancestors was the Scarab from the Ancient Egypt.
Crazy facts: One dung beetle can bury dung 250 times its own weight in a night.




(I now use "Faqts" because "HypnoFacts" doesn't seem quite right...)

[Kali]

1. Scarabs - as kids we called them roly poly bugs

us freaky, hippy ranchers like to see them around. They break up and bury dung - good for the soil. One way you can tell things are functioning well is not seeing a lot of petrified cow pies all over the place.

Some people use systemic insecticides to kill flies but of course that kills dung beetles too, and all the other inverts that break up manure into soil nutrients.

The Egyptians revered them because they represented creation from nothing (life from death/waste)- Khepri.

[DarkTirade]

2. The rolling ball was also seen as a reflection of the way that the sun moved through the sky.

[MajorChode]

3. When you break up, the female takes all your shit.

Humans and dung beetles at least have that in common.

[Kali]

4. well, since all he ever did was give her shit the whole time they were together...

:evilgrin:

[MajorChode]

5. Good point, but at least it was more than she brought to the relationship

[GoddessOfGuinness]

6. No shit?

:P

[carlyhippy]

7. The song "rawhide" song would be a good dung beetle song

rollin rolling rollin

[peekaloo]

8. Tumble Turds

that's what my aunt called them. :-)

[JitterbugPerfume]

9. Did you know there is a poem about them?

If I was a little stink bug

In a nasty dirty place

I'd eat my little belly full

And rub some on my face