HOW DUNG BEETLES CLEAN THE SAVANNAH
Discover the lives of these natural wasteremoval insects and their fascination with faeces
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD
On a nice sunny day, there’s nothing a dung beetle likes to do more than seek out some animal faeces, ball it up and roll it away for suppertime. With a pair of poop-sensitive antennae on their heads, dung beetles use their keen sense of smell to locate and track down faeces. Like many other coprophagic critters, such as rodents and rabbits, dung beetles obtain nutrition from the unmetabolised nutrients that remain in other animals’ faeces. Scientists have even found that some dung beetles have a preference for faeces rich in nitrogen, which they use to build muscle-making proteins. They also prefer the dung of omnivores for its more pungent aroma compared to herbivore dung. It’s a competitive business: more than 80 species of dung beetles can find themselves fighting over the same meal, so finding food fast is essential to their survival.