Scientific Name:  Canthus indicus

Order:  Coleoptera
Family:  Scarabaeidae

Diet:  They eat dung.  They find their food by using their excellent sense of smell.
Vegetation Association:  Dung, and in cattle country.
Predators:   Burrowing Owls will decorate their burrows with dung; they prey upon the dung beetles that are attracted to it.

Life Stages: Complete metamorphosis, egg, larvae, pupae, adult.

Notes:   Male and females dung beetles will roll a dung ball quickly away from a dung pile to prevent it from being stolen from other dung beetles.  Once they find soft soil they will bury the dung ball, mate, brood the ball preparing it for the young, then the female will lay eggs inside it.  Dung beetles are a very important species, they provide soil with nutrients needed for agriculture and they prevent dung from reaching stagnation where it could become the home to flies and other pests.  Dried dung beetles have been used in Chinese medicine.  They also have significance in Egypt where they have been linked to Khepri, the god of the rising sun.  The Egyptians believed that Khepri renewed the sun everyday and rolled it to the horizon just as the dung beetle rolls the ball of dung. 

Photo:  To be added.

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