A ball to take away
It carves a ball from fresh dung, far bigger than itself, and rolls it off to bury before a rival can steal it.
The savanna · Beetles
Dung beetle
Scarabaeus
A stout, black beetle that shapes a ball of dung and rolls it away backwards.
- Size
- 2 to 4cm long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Grassland and bush across Africa, wherever large animals graze
Rolls its ball after you. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Dung beetle
Good to know
Six things about the dung beetle
It pushes backwards
It stands on its front legs, head down, and pushes the ball with its back legs.
It steers by the stars
To roll in a straight line at night it uses the glow of the Milky Way. No other animal is known to do this.
Stronger than it looks
Some dung beetles can pull more than a thousand times their own weight.
A nursery in a ball
The female lays a single egg inside a buried ball. The grub eats its way out.
Sacred in ancient Egypt
The Egyptians saw the beetle rolling its ball as the sun being pushed across the sky, and carved scarabs in stone.
The real thing
Photos of the dung beetle
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Find fresh dung on a warm day, stand back and wait. Beetles fly in within minutes and the rolling begins.
How to help
Dung beetles bury seeds, feed the soil and keep flies down. Farmers who avoid worming chemicals that pass into dung have far more of them.
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