Dung Rollers

Canthon

Dung rollers are amazing insects that help clean up animal poop! They roll the dung into balls and take it to their homes. This helps keep the environment clean and provides food for them.

Lebensraum: Grasslands

Aussehen

The Dung Rollers has a stout, often dark and iridescent body, with strong, spiny legs adapted for digging and shaping dung. Their hard, protective wing cases (elytra) can display metallic green or bronze hues, covering functional wings.

ReichAnimaliaStammArthropodaKlasseInsectaOrdnungColeopteraFamilieScarabaeidaeGattungCanthon

Dung Rollers

Kategorie

Insekten

Seltenheit

Common

Gefahr

1/5 · Sehr gering

Snaps

Mach den ersten Snap!

Interessante Fakten

Ancient Egyptians worshipped scarab beetles, a type of dung roller.

Dung rollers help farms by burying pest eggs and improving soil.

Some dung rollers dance on their dung ball to cool their feet!

They are the world's strongest insect relative to their size.

Besondere Fähigkeiten

Dung Rollers can roll their dung balls in a perfectly straight line because they navigate using the polarization patterns of moonlight or sunlight.

Dung Rollers has incredibly strong legs and body that helps them push dung balls many times their own weight, up to 1,141 times!

Dung Rollers can sculpt dung into perfect spheres because their specialized legs allow for precise molding for their eggs.

Maße und Details

Flügelspannweite: 7-60 mm
Größe: 5-30 mm
Lebenserwartung: 60-365 Tage
Fluggeschwindigkeit: 10 km/h
Anzahl der Beine: 6

Ernährung und Fütterung

These amazing insects eat animal droppings, recycling nutrients back into the ecosystem.

Hauptnahrung

mammal dung
bird droppings
decaying fungi

Nahrungssuche

Foraging

Ökologische Zusammenhänge

eaten by

American Crow

Corvus brachyrhynchos

Hunts adult and larval dung rollers in open fields.

eaten by

Common Toad

Bufo bufo

Consumes dung rollers foraging on the ground at night.

eaten by

Virginia Opossum

Didelphis virginiana

Forages for insects, including dung beetles, on the ground.

Merkmale

Einzelgänger

Einzelgänger leben den größten Teil ihres Lebens allein und interagieren mit Artgenossen nur zur Paarung oder zur Aufzucht der Jungen.

Aasfresser

Aasfresser ernähren sich von toter organischer Substanz und helfen dabei, Kadaver und andere Abfälle im Ökosystem abzubauen.

Grasland

Grasland-Lebensräume sind terrestrische Biome, die von Gräsern und krautigen Pflanzen dominiert werden und einer Vielzahl von Weidetieren als Lebensraum dienen.