Dung beetles are beetles that primarily eat the feces of herbivores and omnivores, but they also eat other foods. They belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, but only those in the Scarabaeinae group feed entirely on dung. Dung beetles bury animal droppings (also called dung) to loosen and nourish their larvae. They use their antennae to find fresh feces, either moving into or collecting it in underground chambers.
Dung beetles roll poop primarily to feed their young, with females depositing each egg in its own tiny dung sausage. When the larvae hatch, they have a ready supply of food to complete their development in the dung. By eating poo, dung beetles may be selecting cells from the gut wall of the herbivore which made it. They mostly eat excreta of mammals, filtering nutrients out of the feces that the mammal have failed to take up. Most dung beetles prefer dung from herbivores, which do not digest their food very well. Their dung contains half-digested grass and a smelly liquid.
Dung beetles roll dung into balls, transporting it to a safer location where they can consume it. Dung provides them with the necessary nutrients, and most dung beetles prefer dung from herbivores. The larvae like poop specifically with plant material that hasn’t been fully digested. A new study hints at a reptilian source for the beetles’ diet.
| Article | Description | Site |
|---|---|---|
| Five things dung beetles do with a piece of poo | Dung beetles get theirs from dung. By eating poo, dung beetles may be selecting the cells from the gut wall of the herbivore which made it. | theconversation.com |
| Do dung beetles poop? Asking for a friend… : r/insects | I believe they mostly eat excreta of mammals, by doing this they filter the nutrients out of the feces that the mammal have failed to take up. | reddit.com |
| What do dung beetles do with the dung they roll? | What does a dung beetle do to its own poop? Do they … ‘ Dung beetles do bury, and their larvae consume, amounts of vegetarian’s faeces. | quora.com |
📹 How Dung Beetles Evolved to Eat Poop
All dung beetles belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, but only those in the Scarabaeinae group feed entirely on dung.
📹 Why isn’t the world covered in poop? – Eleanor Slade and Paul Manning
Each day, the animal kingdom produces roughly enough poop to match the volume of water pouring over Victoria Falls. So why …
Learn about the fascinating ways that animals — including the dung beetle — have evolved to defend themselves by reading Douglas J. Emlen’s “Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle”: amzn.to/2DVOLRn. According to Emlen, “This is a book about extreme weapons, structures so gargantuan and bizarre they look like they shouldn’t be possible.” Each book sold through this link also helps support TED-Ed’s nonprofit mission!
I actually read a story about this (grandma’s bag of stories, it was my school lit book that year)(the whole book was actually pretty interesting) Basically it was about a guy who thought we were doomed bc horse poop is going to over load the word(that was only the start, if you want to read the whole thing you can search it up or read the book yourself) yea not a super villain or smth but horse poop