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The vast plains of Africa, which are home to many fairly large herbivores, are also home to the scarab beetle . Probably Africa, and the whole planet, has not yet been mired in huge piles of dung thanks to dung beetles, among which scarab beetles have the most honorable place.
Origin of the species and description
Photo: Scarab beetle
Entomologists classify the scarab beetle as belonging to the genus Scarabaeidae, the class Insectae, the order Coleoptera, and the family Lamelidae. This family is characterized by a special shape of the mustache, which can periodically open in the form of a fan consisting of thin movable plates.
Video: Scarab beetle
Currently, science knows more than a hundred representatives of this genus, which usually live in dry steppes, deserts, semi-deserts, and savannas. Most species of scarabs can only be found in the tropical zone of the African continent. The region called the Palaearctic, spanning northern Africa, Europe and northern Asia, is home to approximately 20 species.
The body length of scarab beetles can vary between 9-40 mm. Most of them have a matte black color of the chitinous layer, which becomes more shiny as they mature. Sometimes you can find insects with chitin of a silver-metallic color, but this is very rare. Males differ from females not in color and size, but in their hind legs, which are covered on the inside with golden fringe.
All scarab beetles are very characterized by vegetation on the legs and abdomen, as well as the presence of four teeth on the front pair of legs, which are involved in digging and forming balls of dung.
What is included in the diet
In ancient times, the Egyptians believed that the scarab was a cannibal. The beetle crawls under the skin and begins to eat a person from the inside, destroying all organs. Naturally, this is a myth.
Beetles do not feed on flesh. Insects are completely safe for humans and animals. The representatives are classified as orderlies. In an hour, 4 thousand dung beetles destroy a pile of manure. Scarabs are voracious.
The beetles begin to crawl out as soon as the air warms up. At first, insects lead a diurnal lifestyle, and then crawl to the surface only at night. In order to live for 14 days, the scarab requires one large ball of dung.
The insect rolls the food ball into a pre-dug hole. After the pair appears, the beetles make the preparation together.
Beetles prepare dung balls
Food is prepared as follows: a small piece of cattle feces serves as the base; With the edge of its head, the insect cuts off the required amount of feces; The beetle forms balls with its front and hind legs; With its middle legs, the insect firmly holds the feces until the ball is formed.
The balls are stored in a shelter in a dark and cool place. When transporting food, the insect makes sure that other representatives do not take the prey.
Sometimes the ball can be taken away by larger relatives. Therefore, when transporting the beetle, it must be extremely careful. Not only further nutrition, but also procreation depends on the preparations. Like other dung beetles, the insect lays larvae in a round piece of dung. The larvae feed on manure prepared by the female until they mature.
Appearance and features
Photo: What a scarab beetle looks like
The body of the scarab beetle has the appearance of a wide, slightly convex oval, completely covered with an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is a very hard and durable chitinous cover, usually acting as so-called armor that protects the beetle’s body from injuries associated with its type of activity. The head of the scarab beetle is short and wide with six teeth at the front.
The pronotum of the insect is also wide and short, flat, quite simple in shape, has a granular structure and a large number of small lateral teeth. The insect's hard chitinous elytra are more than twice as long as the pronotum, have six longitudinal shallow grooves, and the same uneven granular structure.
The posterior section of the abdomen is bordered by small teeth and covered with sparse vegetation in the form of dark hairs. The same hairs are present on all three pairs of legs. The front legs serve the beetles for digging soil and manure. Compared to other paws, they look coarser, more powerful, massive and are equipped with four outer teeth, some of which have many very small teeth at their base. The middle and hind legs appear longer, thinner, curved and help the insects form balls of dung and also carry them to their destination.
Interesting fact: Dung balls formed by scarab beetles can be tens of times larger than the size of insects.
Deity or ordinary dung beetle?
06/30/2021 Dung beetles or earth-boring beetles ( lat. Geotrupidae
) is the collective name of several subfamilies of beetles of the lamellar beetles family, most of which entomologists attribute to the subfamily
Bolboceratinae
(lat.).
The first part of the name Geotrupidae
comes from the Greek word "
geos
", and translates as earth.
The second part " trypetes
" means driller.
There are about 600 species of dung beetles in the world.
The most famous representative of dung beetles is the sacred scarab ( lat. Scarabaeus sacer
). This insect was considered sacred in Ancient Egypt and personified the god of the rising sun named Khepri. He was depicted either as a scarab, or had a human body with the head of a beetle.
A unique feature of the scarab is its ability to construct quite large balls from dung, which can be two to three times the size of the insect itself, and then drive them over very long distances, rolling them in front of itself, like a wheelbarrow. The fact that the dung beetle always moves along a strictly defined route (from east to west), thus repeating the path of the sun in the sky, obviously served as the reason for the special attitude of the Egyptians towards this insect.
Images of scarab beetles are often found on papyri, seals, jewelry, as well as amulets and other religious items. Scarab figurines have been repeatedly discovered in tombs. During the mummification process, they were placed on the body of the deceased, since it was believed that the beetle, being in the other world with the deceased, would be able to protect his soul from evil.
Despite the worship and aura of mystery that formed around this insect in ancient times, modern science classifies Scarabaeus sacer
to ordinary dung beetles. Like all members of the family, this insect prefers a warm climate, most often with a steppe landscape. It feeds on the excrement of large herbivores and from time to time chases dung balls, which are nothing more than food for future offspring.
After a long run, the scarab burrows into the ground to a depth of 7 to 40 cm and makes a pear-shaped cradle from dung, into which it lays one egg. The beetle is no longer interested in the further fate of the offspring, and it leaves the clutch.
Soon a larva emerges from the egg, which feeds on the stored manure, after which it pupates and overwinters in the form of a pupa, so that with the onset of spring, as a result of metamorphosis, it turns into a scarab imago.
Dung beetles in Ukraine
Three species of dung beetles originally lived on the territory of Ukraine. In the southern regions of the steppe zone, and in particular in the Askania Nova reserve (Kherson region), as well as in the Crimea, the sacred scarab was found.
Currently, this species of beetle is recognized as endangered, and therefore is listed in the Red Book. The reason, according to entomologists, was the active plowing of virgin steppe lands, which were traditionally the habitat of sacred scarabs.
Alas, over the past 50 years, not a single representative of these insects has been discovered in our country.
The closest relative of the legendary beetle is the typhon scarab ( lat. Scarabaeus typhon
). This type of dung beetle is considered the most flexible and, unlike the heat-loving sacred scarab, prefers to inhabit the temperate zones of our country. For example, it can be found in the Chernigov and Zhytomyr regions, as well as in the vicinity of Kamenets-Podolsky.
Another type of dung beetle that lives mainly in the steppe zone is the Sisyphus Schaeffer scarab, named after the famous German botanist, ornithologist, entomologist, professor at the Universities of Tübingen and Wittenberg, Jakob Christian Schaeffer.
The appearance of the word “Sisyphus” in the beetle’s name is explained by the similarity of the insect’s activities with the work of King Sisyphus. The character of ancient Greek myths, for his sins after death, ended up in hell, where he was forced to constantly roll a huge stone in front of him up the mountain, which, upon reaching the top, immediately fell down. Some philosophers believe that in this meaningless activity the king finally found meaning and his main purpose. As for the Sisyphus beetle, its endless movement of dung balls is not at all useless work, because they serve as food for it and its offspring.
Description of dung beetles
Most often, these insects look like small (from 16 to 27 mm), but strong and hardy bugs of coal-black color. Their body is oval, with a convex back.
The abdomen usually has an iridescent metallic color (with shades of blue and green), and the long limbs are equipped with special serrations, with the help of which the insect constructs and then rolls a dung ball in front of itself.
The beetles have leathery wings. They are covered with thickened protective elytra, the chitinous surface of which can be smooth or covered with small longitudinal grooves.
There are species of dung beetles that feed exclusively on cow, horse or sheep droppings, and some members of the family prefer human or monkey excrement.
At the same time, certain types of dung beetles, despite their name, not only do not roll balls, but do not eat dung at all. Thus, entomologist at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) Clark Scholtz believes that many species of these insects prefer to feed on tiny particles of epithelium that they find in excrement.
Moreover, some dung beetles are predators and hunt small insects.
For example, a representative of the non-profit research organization Conservation International
» Trond Larsen, while studying wild forests in the southeast of Suriname, located near the border with Brazil, discovered a special species of dung beetles that attacked large ants, and then, like their counterparts, rolled balls in front of them. Only instead of dung, these beetles used the heads of their victims, delivering them in such an unusual way to their place of permanent deployment.
Trond Larsen also encountered a dung beetle that was attacking a centipede. The beetle managed to overtake and kill its prey even though nature did not endow this species with the tools necessary for hunting, such as poison or powerful jaws, which other predators usually possess.
There is also a very unusual species of dung beetles that lives on the backs of giant snails and feeds exclusively on the mucus they secrete.
Meanwhile, most dung beetles bring real benefits. They fertilize and structure the soil, reduce the spread of parasites and, according to some scientists, have the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere (due to the fact that they consume animal waste products).
What is more from dung beetles - harm or benefit?
By consuming waste and waste products of animals, dung beetles not only contribute to the rapid mineralization of plant residues and disinfect manure, but also perform a soil-forming function. Playing the role of a kind of “orderlies,” they also contribute to the spread of plant seeds that do not have time to be digested in the digestive tract of herbivores.
To illustrate the benefits of dung beetles, we can cite an entertaining story that happened in Australia in the 60s of the last century. Settlers from Europe, who began to actively explore the “fifth continent,” brought with them to the new lands a huge number of farm animals, mainly cows and sheep.
Local representatives of dung beetles, adapted to processing dung, primarily from marsupials, very quickly ceased to cope with the ever-increasing volumes of livestock dung. Piles of drying excrement began to cover vast areas of the continent. This, in turn, contributed to a significant increase in the fly population, causing the problem to reach truly alarming proportions.
At the initiative of the Australian State Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO), a project was urgently developed to introduce new species of dung beetles. lat. Onthophagus gazella) were brought in to help local insects
), which, fortunately, quickly adapted to the new living conditions and over the next 20 years completely eliminated the problem.
Subsequently, Australian experience was useful in New Zealand, as well as in some countries of South and North America.
The beneficial properties of dung beetles include the ability of these insects to have a negative impact on the rate of spread of parasites infecting livestock. Thus, as a result of an experiment carried out by scientists at the University of Bristol (UK), it was proven that dung beetles actually help reduce the population of parasitic insects and their larvae.
Another representative of the scientific world named Thomas Roslin believes that as a result of the vital activity of dung beetles, greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere are reduced by up to 40%. The holes made by beetles in the manure serve as a kind of ventilation shafts through which oxygen enters the heap. And, as you know, this chemical element is destructive for microorganisms that produce methane.
The same Clark Scholtz suggests looking at the problem from a different point of view. The scientist gives the following figures: in South Africa, the cattle population reaches 15 million individuals, which produce thousands of tons of manure every day. If it weren’t for dung beetles, people on the country’s pastures would long ago have had to walk knee-deep, or even shoulder-deep, in this livestock waste.
His words are fully supported by the representative of the British team of scientists, Bryony Sands. The scientist believes that all representatives of the family Geotrupidae
are an important part of the ecosystem of our planet and occupy no less significant place in it than, for example, bees. It’s just that the work of these insects is actually still undervalued.
The most powerful insect on the planet
You probably already guessed that it was the representative of dung beetles that was identified as the most powerful beetle on our planet.
The champion was a dung beetle with the Latin name Onthophagus taurus
. To determine the carrying capacity, scientists attached a thin thread to the insect's elytra, threaded through a special block, and to the opposite end of the thread they attached a miniature bucket, into which ordinary water was added drop by drop. As a result of the experiment, it turned out that this dung beetle was able to lift a load whose mass is equivalent to 1141 times the weight of a beetle.
Previously, the record for carrying capacity belonged to the rhinoceros beetle, but the representative of Geotrupidae
was able to improve his result by almost a third, leaving the former champion far behind.
A similar and even slightly higher result was also demonstrated by the mite, called in Latin Archegozetes longisetosus
. But since mites are not insects, but one of the subclasses of arachnids, the dung beetle is still considered the leader in its class.
The Incredible Abilities of Dung Beetles
The fact that the dung beetle is well oriented by the sun has been known since the times of Ancient Egypt. But, as modern scientists have found out, some species of dung beetles are capable of excellent navigation at night, since they have facet vision that reacts to light sources. In particular, the beetles are well oriented by the Moon, the brightest stars and the Milky Way, which allows them to deliver balls of dung rolled up to exactly the right place.
According to Dr. Marie Dacke from Lund University (Sweden), when moving at night, dung beetles follow a clearly defined route, choosing the most direct and shortest path. At the same time, they can move both along the Milky Way and at right angles to it.
The experiment was carried out with a dung beetle, called Scarabaeus satyrus
. The experiments themselves were carried out directly at the Johannesburg Planetarium, whose equipment makes it possible to simulate various configurations of the location of stars in the night sky.
During the study, the experimental insects were absolutely deprived of the ability to navigate by other external objects, since they were in a black box with black walls.
But as soon as a picture of the starry sky appeared on the dome of the planetarium, which included, among other things, an image of the Milky Way, the beetles immediately quickly oriented themselves and began to move, choosing the only right direction. When they were selectively shown only a few bright stars, the insects immediately lost their orientation and lost their way. This once again proves how little modern science knows about these amazing insects, except that there are thousands of species of them, and the total number reaches billions of individuals.
In fact, the life of beetles has always been a closely guarded secret.
Perhaps it was not for nothing that the Egyptians made the scarab the symbol and personification of the Egyptian solar deity? Perhaps this is the case? Share on social networks:
Where does the scarab beetle live?
Photo: Scarab beetle in Egypt
It is traditionally believed that scarab beetles live in Egypt, where they have long been revered and almost worshiped, but the habitat of the insects is much wider. The scarab is found almost throughout Africa, in Europe (western and southern parts of the continent, southern Russia, Dagestan, Georgia, France, Greece, Turkey), in Asia and even on the Crimean Peninsula.
In general, it turns out that scarab beetles prefer a warm or hot climate with short and mild winters, which is typical for the above regions, as well as the coasts of the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Beetles prefer to live on sandy soils in savannas, dry steppes, deserts and semi-deserts, while they try to avoid saline areas.
It is interesting that beetles live on the Crimean peninsula, but probably, due to the salinity of large areas of the region, they are much smaller in size than their Egyptian relatives.
Interesting fact: More than 20 years ago, entomologists tried to detect traces of scarabs in Australia, but these attempts were unsuccessful. Apparently on this continent Mother Nature never had a need for orderlies. And no wonder, Australia has always been famous not for the abundance of wildlife, but for its unusualness, especially since its entire central part is a dry desert sparsely populated by animals.
Now you know where the scarab beetle is found. Let's see what he eats.
Interesting
Well, “for a snack” - one very interesting fact. Few people know that dung beetles, which live in the deserts of Africa, have the ability to collect moisture from fog. To achieve this goal, they spread their wings and stand against the wind. Droplets settle on the convex areas, which over time become large and flow directly into the beetles’ mouths. This is how they drink, getting water practically from thin air! Are you weak?
