Given their name, it should come as no surprise that dung beetles feed on faeces, which makes them useful recyclers. There are three main types of dung beetles: rollers, tunnellers and dwellers. The dwellers actually live in the dung. Typical dung beetle appearance is a grooved shield, large, strong front limbs for digging and fighting and elongated back legs for holding on to dung balls whilst rolling them along. Long flying wings are folded under hard wing covers. Some of the well known families in the dung beetle superfamily are the stag, bess and scarab beetles. Dung beetles can be found on every continent except Antarctica.

Did you know?
There is a species of African dung beetle that navigates by the polarization patterns in moonlight.


More...