Why isn’t the world covered in poop?

Dung beetles

These are species of beetles that feed over the dung or faeces of animals. These are extremely helpful in carrying out all the dirt and can bury dung which is almost 250 times larger than their own mass in just a single night.

These are named as Scarabaeus viettei scientifically. Madateuchus viettei is an another synonym of the dung beetle. They belong to the family Scarabaeoidia. There are three sub families to which these dung beetles belong which are Geotrupidae and Scarabaeinae and also Aphodiinae families. The Scarabaeinae family comprises of almost 5000 species of dung beetles.

These are found in every natural habitat such as grasslands, deserts etc but are not found in Antarctica. These dung beetles cannot bear extremely cold conditions or extreme hot conditions. They feed over the dung produced by herbivores as well as omnivorous animals. They also eat mushrooms and also on decaying material and fruits etc. There is a only a single type of dung beetle that is carnivorous in nature i.e, Deltochilum valgum which is found in central America region which feeds over the millipedes. The nutrients required by the dung beetles are provided by the dung itself.

They have powerful sense of smell with which these dung beetles find the presence of dung or some small species of the dung beetles attached themselves to the dung providers to feed on their dung.

After the dung is collected, the dung is rolled into a sphere and the dung beetles take it away.

The dung beetles are classified into three types based on their actions such as some of the beetles roll up the dung into round balls that act as a site of food as well as for breeding then they are called as rollers and some of the beetles are called as tunnelers where they collect the dung and bury it in a tunnel. The next type of dung beetles are called as dwellers as they neither roll the dung like the rollers nor bury them like the tunnelers, they just like on the dung matter. They get attracted to the dung collected by the owls.

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