Do you know what kinds of dung beetles there are? With pictures to enjoy
The dung beetle is also called the scarab. Do you know what kinds of dung beetles there are? There are more than 20,000 species of scarabs in the world, distributed on every continent except Antarctica. The most famous scarab lives in Egypt and is 1 to 2.5 cm long. The largest dung beetle in the world is the 10 cm long giant scarab. Most dung beetles are coprophagous, feeding on animal droppings, and have the title of "nature's scavenger".
I. Types of dung beetles
1. Sacred scarab
The sacred scarab lives in grasslands, high mountains, deserts and jungles; wherever there is animal dung, their diligent figures will be there. In the vast world of beetles, the sacred scarab is the most magical —— its body is covered with armor that shines with bronze, weak emerald green or dark blue light. In ancient Egypt, people used this beetle as a totem object; when the pharaoh died, his heart would be cut out and replaced with a stone covered with sacred scarabs.
2. Onthophagus taurus-like dung beetle
The Onthophagus taurus-like dung beetle is an insect found only in Beijing, and is an insect of the genus Copris in the family Scarabaeidae.
3. Stinky dung beetle
The stinky dung beetle is entirely black. The male has a horn-like protrusion on top of its head, and its pronotum is strongly concave backward and downward, forming sharp corners at the edges of the concavity. The female's head and pronotum are normal. The elytra have longitudinal ridges, and it is phototactic. Body length is 20 to 30 mm. It is distributed in Beijing, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Jiangsu, as well as Korea, Japan, Mongolia and other places.
4. Buzzing dung beetle
The buzzing dung beetle is an insect of the genus Copris in the family Scarabaeidae. Body length is 4.6 to 5.7 mm, and body width is 2.7 to 3.6 mm. The body is small, short and broadly oval, and quite arched and thick dorsoventrally. The body is dark brown to black, and the whole body is densely covered with hairy punctures. The hair color is brown, and the luster is dull.
5. Shennong clean dung beetle
The Shennong clean dung beetle is an insect of the genus Copris in the family Scarabaeidae. Body length is 3 to 4 cm. The body is pitch black, and the horns are forked.
II. What do dung beetles mainly eat?
Dung beetles mainly eat feces. Feces are the waste residue produced after animals digest food. They all stink and smell very bad, and we all think they are very dirty. But there are still many nutrients in feces, because the animal's stomach and intestines cannot absorb all the nutrients in the food completely, so the remaining nutrients are excreted from the body along with the residue. This is also why feces can be used as fertilizer and can make plants grow well; plants can absorb the nutrients in feces through the soil. So dung beetles feed on the nutrients in feces and can absorb the nutrients in feces.
In fact, what we collectively call dung beetles are coprophagous beetles. Strictly speaking, they include earth-boring dung beetles and scarabs. Although we call both of these beetles dung beetles, there are actually differences. Earth-boring dung beetles belong to the family Geotrupidae, while scarabs belong to the coprophagous subfamily under the family Scarabaeidae. In a word, although their feeding habits are similar, they are not the same beetles and can only be considered relatives.