Dung Beetles: Special Cleaners.

  Have you ever wondered where animal feces in the wild go to?

The Dung Beetle doesn’t just have the word Dung attached to it for aesthetic purposes. 

When it comes to regulating the ecosystem, the dung beetle are one of the most important specie with a very important role in both reduction of waste and ghg emission.

As the name suggests, when animals excrete their feces, the dung beetle comes around to do cleanup, hence while they are called ‘Dung' Beetle. They Roll this feces into balls that  can weigh more than 1000 times their weight, (in comparison, that’s like an average man lifting a whale – This is why they are classified as the strongest animal in the world with consideration of size) and bury them. A single dung beetle can bury feces 250 times their sizes in a single night. After burying this dung, they lay their larvaes in them, and this larvaes in turn will feed on this dung till they mature into a beetle. 

What is the significance of the dung beetle burying

dungs apart from using it as a source of meal for their larvae?

Burying the dung underground helps to reduce the emission Greenhouse gases. Feces contains methane which is a very dangerous greenhouse gas when exposed to the atmosphere. Burying the dung underground would prevent the methane from getting to the atmosphere as most of it is broken down in the soil.

The dung beetle act of burying dung in the soil is a beneficial process for farmers. When they dig the ground to bury the dung, they help farmers furrow the soil. The dung also produces nitrogen in the soil, hence making the soil fertile for farming.

The dung beetle also plays a role in seed dispersion, as most times, some of this animal feces they bury contain undigested seeds.

The ecosystem is filled with other special players that help the ecosystem the different ways. The link below talks about how this species can be protect and why they should be protected.

Know more about Your Ecosystem and Importance Of Biodiversity