Dung beetles qualify as elder statesmen among the world's life forms. Remnants of beetles not too different from today's living varieties have been found in dinosaur coprolites over 70 million years old (1). Dung beetles are the toilet paper of the huge grassland areas like the Serengeti. Simply, they clean up the shit and bury it. They exist and perform their valuable function in every place on earth where large ruminants exist (2).
Valuable function? Absolutely! Without the dung beetle, huge grasslands like the Serengeti would not only be a place that you wouldn't care to walk through without hip boots and a gas mask, but it would be a much deader place. Shit on top of the ground is shit. It kills grass, it blocks sunlight, and it makes it difficult for ruminants to graze. Shit under the ground has a different name. It's called fertilizer. The dung beetle closes the loop between the grasslands and the animals that live on it. The grasslands nourish the ruminants and, because of the dung beetle, the ruminants return nourishment to the grasslands.
The male dung beetle starts the ball rolling, so to speak, by locating the south end of a large, north bound plant eater. He does this by taking off and flying into the wind just like a cute little ladybug until he detects the methane emanations he seeks. He homes in on these and, because, like most beetles, he's not that great at flying or landing, kind of bails out in the general vicinity and scuttles along the rest of the way. The process sounds haphazard, but its rather efficient and an elephant or rhino that's about to stand and deliver would have a crowd of eager kibitzers waiting down in the grass.
When the big event occurs, the beetles go into a frenzy of activity, searching out the cream of the crap and forming it into a passable sphere two to three times their size. Competition is fierce. Males will fight to the death over a prize piece of poop. Within a matter of hours a large, steaming pile of dung seems to divide itself into little brown marbles and roll away.
So why are the male beetles doing this? And, by the way, where are all the females while this is going on? As with many species, the females wait in the wings while all the rough stuff is going on and then emerge and take their pick of the survivors. Also, as with many species, the females are attracted to a well-heeled male. In some species this takes the form of a large, well-diversified portfolio of blue chip stocks, but in the dung beetle world, the females are attracted to a fellow with a large, well-formed ball of fresh, nutrient-rich shit (3). "What a guy," they say to themselves as he rolls by; their little hearts go pit-a-pat within their chitinous breasts.
Couples quickly form and the nuptials take place. Vows are exchanged. Bouquets are thrown. Glasses are raised in toast. The curtain of modesty is drawn over the pleasures of the wedding night, and soon the new couple is ready to take their place in society. Together they roll the dung ball -- once belonging to the male but now community property -- to an appropriate spot and dig a hole deep enough to bury it. They roll the dung ball into the hole, the female lays her eggs on it, and they cover it up. The grubs will hatch underground and knosh on this tasty morsel during their development. When they're mature, they dig their way up to the surface and the cycle repeats.
(1) One would have to suspect that ancient dung beetles were a hardier species than those that exist today. After all, dealing with a fresh elephant-pie is one thing, but a brontosaurus-pie -- which, speaking of beetles, was about the size of a Volkswagen -- is something else again.(«)
(2) Actually, they had to be imported into Australia to handle cow-pies, but that was only because the Australians, in one of their brave environmental experiments, had previously imported the cows. The native dung beetles -- perhaps a marsupial form -- never developed a taste for the standard English cow flop and, with 30 million cows generating about 12 million pies per hour, the Australians were in some danger of having to abandon ship before a Mexican dung beetle was successfully introduced. («)
(3) Because the ball of dung plays such a major role in the sex life of the dung beetle, we would have to say that in addition to being coprophagous, the dung beetles are also coprophiliacs.(«)