At first, let’s learn about the insect that is doing all the hard work for this problem. For this important job, we can thank the humble dung beetle for eating up the excess dung every day. This insect is capable of burying 250 times of dung in a single night according to their body weight. In this world, over 7000 of known species of dung beetle perform cleanup work around the clock across six continents. That’s means everywhere except in Antarctica.
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How Dung Beetle Work?
Generally, a dung beetle's first task is to locate the dung around it. For this reason, some of the dung beetles are lived at the anal reason for a big animal and ready to leap off when they defecated. Others sniff out feces that animals leave behind. A pile of single elephant dung can attract around 4000 dung beetle in just 15 minutes. That’s means competition is high. Once a beetle finds the dung it must work quickly to secure some of the bounties for itself.
Another thing is that most of the dung beetles fall into one of three main groups. The first one is rollers, the second is tunnelers and the third is dwellers. Dung beetles make dung ball by dung and using their back leg they quickly roll it away from other competitors. During this rolling, some potential partners jump on the dung ball and if the ball maker selected their mate then they dig their dung ball into the soil. When a dung ball is buried completely into the soil then the female lays a single egg on the dung ball.
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Tunnelers have a different approach. Digging underneath a pat, some drag down into the soil and packet it into clumps which are known as brood balls, dung balls or dung “sausages”. It also depends on its shape and size. Male tunnelers sport a spectacular array of horns to fight each other to control the tunnels. Then they defend until female beetles laid her egg. But some tunnelers avoid the fray by masquerading as hornless females and sneaking into tunnels to mate while the guardian's head is turned.
Now come to the third group of dung beetles. This group of dung beetles takes the most straightforward approach. They lay their egg directly into the ding pat. This also makes their offspring more vulnerable to the prediction than those of the tunnelers and rollers. When the larvae feed, they riddle the dung pat into tunnels and leaving remains that are quickly colonized by bacteria and fungi. Inside the tunnels ball and pat once the larvae hatched they consume the dung before metamorphosing into a pupa. Then the pupa becomes adult beetles.
Effects on Environment:
Dung beetles clear dung and it has an ecological impact. They serve as secondary seed dispersers. Dung from monkeys, wild pigs, and other animals is riddled with various seeds from the various fruits they eat. When dung beetles buried the dung then seeds also buried under the soil. This step also protects the seeds form other predators like a rat.
Life stock live cows and sheep produce a huge amount of dung. That dung contains nutrients that can help plants to grow. All dung beetles dig dung ball near to the root of the tree under the soil and break the nutrients. Dung beetles services value to the farmer in the U.S is about $380 million and in the U.K is about £367 million.
Dung beetles also help us to battle global warming. It reduces greenhouse gasses from the farming sector. If you see any dung beetles around you like in the forest or field, say hi to him or her for their great work.