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A short post on dung beetles. Our drivers stopped and showed us a dung beetle rolling his dung ball. They make a ball out of dung, lay one egg in the ball, and then bury it in the ground. When the egg hatches, the beetle uses the dung as food and the moisture from the ground for water until it grows to a size where it can survive. After his talk, some of us saw one on the path near our lunch stop and observed his behavior for a while. This beetle is pushing the dung ups hill in the picture. Notice the beetle’s head is down and it is pushing the ball with his rear feet guiding it. The one we watched was pushing up an incline and after several feet it rolled backwards with the beetle hanging on downhill several feet. The problem for him was that the edges of the path were too steep to be able to roll up where the ball can be buried. So, one of us, picked up the ball with the beetle and placed in a better spot. He thanked us :) and rolled on. Later on we walked back the same way and saw one being buried.
Here is a short video.