Photo and Commentary (c)2025 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
My introduction to Dung Beetles happened many years ago. Perhaps it was in a nature article for kids found in one of the church papers. I mention this because I still recall there was a moral lesson attached. Sometimes those writers seemed to have to stretch the truth a bit to make the lesson fit, but for me, this lesson matched up perfectly. If there was one thing I missed, it was that I believed these industrious insects lived in faraway places, in Africa or Asia, or some other mission land. Truth is, Dung Beatles are found on all continents except Antarctica and this particular one was photographed in Texas.
There are many species that carry this name but they all feed at least partially or exclusively on feces or dung. They can be placed into three different categories, but the one shown here would be placed in the roller group. They are assigned this classification because they energetically roll a ball of dung to what they consider to be an appropriate stop to bury it to be used later as a food source or breeding chamber. And it was this rolling process that caught the eye of the afore- mentioned author and myself.
In spite of the childish snickering and efforts at bad jokes, my childhood memory was impressed with the idea that they could roll a ball ten times their own weight, and do so in a straight line in spite of all obstacles in their way. Perhaps Atlas had a loftier task of carrying the world around on his shoulders, but since that’s not my job, maybe I should take care to make sure the tasks I do shoulder are worthy of my best efforts.