Dung beetle

“ The English dung-beetle burrows in the soft sandstone, and throws up neat little heaps of clean sand at the mouth of its hole, like miniature molehills. Still, our English scavenger beetles—known to science as Geotrupes—are not nearly so clever or so interesting as the southern type, for the female in our sort merely grubs a straight tunnel in the ground, and lays her egg in a loose mass of dung, which she drags to the bottom in a shapeless condition. ”

“ By a very singular exception, the Dung-beetles, alone among the immense host of wearers of armoured wing-cases, have a special art of rearing, a system of upbringing which can bear comparison with that of the most gifted insects. ”

“ And the same may be said of the other Dung-beetles skilled in the art of building a hatching-chamber in the centre of the provisions.
No elsewhere in the insect world, except among the Bees, who prepare disgorged food in the shape of honey, is such solicitude seen. The dung-workers edify us with their morals. Several of them practise association in couples and found a household; several anticipate the process of suckling, that supreme expression of maternal tenderness, by turning their crop into a nipple. Life has its freaks. ”

“ The Dung-beetles, who at first were lying flat, rise gradually to their feet, still pushing with their backs. The work becomes harder and harder as the legs, in straightening out, lose their strength; but none the less they do it. Then comes a time when they can no longer push with their backs, the limit of their height having been reached. A last resource remains, but one much less favourable to the development of motive power. This is for the insect to adopt one or other of its postures when harnessed to the ball, head down or up, and to push with its hind- or fore-legs, as the case may be. ”

“ So we were told before by the Scorpion and the Spider;1 So we are told now by the Minotaur, who is more convincing with his arduous calling. He does not eat, yet he is a frantic worker.
The insect world is fruitful in surprises. The three-pronged Dung-beetle, an accomplished faster and nevertheless a remarkable labourer, sets us a magnificent problem. ”

“ For the sake of those who may not be familiar with the insect referred to, I may explain that a dung-beetle is a sort of bug that exhibits its instincts by rolling a ball of dung, and who sometimes appears to meditate when he rolls over the ball that the universe has turned bottom up—because he has. ”

“ And, strange to say, these insects vying in maternal solicitude with the flower-despoiling tribe of Bees are none other than the Dung-beetles, the dealers in ordure, the scavengers of the cattle-fouled meadows. We must pass from the scented blossoms of our flower-beds to the Mule-dung of our high-roads to find a second instance of devoted mothers and lofty instincts. Nature abounds in these antitheses. What are our ugliness or beauty, our cleanliness or dirt to her? Out of filth, she creates the flower; from a little manure, she extracts the thrice-blessed grain of wheat. ”

“ To make this dainty food, does the mother collect the quintessence of the dung? The appearance of it tells me something different and makes me certain that it is a pap prepared in the maternal stomach. The Pigeon softens the grain in her crop and turns it into a sort of milky soup which she subsequently disgorges to her brood. To all seeming, the Dung-beetle displays the same solicitude: she half-digests choice provender and disgorges it in the form of a meat-extract [37] with which she lines the walls of the cavity where the egg is laid. ”

“ If the lack of fore-fingers were an accidental mutilation, due to violent exertion, there are other insects, Dung-beetles too, who habitually undertake works of excavation even more arduous than the Scarab’s, and who ought therefore, a fortiori, to be deprived of their front tarsi, since these are useless and even irksome when the leg has to serve as a powerful digging-implement. ”

“ The revolting workshop of the insect that manipulates ordure will lead perhaps to loftier ideas than would the perfumer’s factory with its jasmine and patchouli.
I have accused the Sacred Beetle of being an insatiable gormandizer. It is time to prove what I said. In my cages, which are too small to allow of much pill-rolling, my boarders often scorn to accumulate provisions and confine themselves to eating where they are. It is a good opportunity for us: the meal taken in public will tell us better than the underground banquet what a Dung-beetle’s stomach can do. ”

“ They are very nearly as hard as stone; their colour inclines to a pale chocolate. Neither inside nor out does the lens discover the slightest ligneous particle pointing to a vegetable residue. The strange Dung-beetle does not, therefore, use cakes of Cow-dung or anything like them; he handles products of another class, which at first are rather difficult to specify.
Held to the ear and shaken, the object rattles slightly, as would the shell of a dry fruit with a stone lying free inside it. Does it contain the grub, shrivelled by desiccation? Does it contain the dead insect? ”

“ We must therefore believe that, if the possibilities of the future should ever produce a Dung-beetle carrying a horn upon his corselet, this upsetter of present customs will not be an Onthophagus who has succeeded in maturing the thoracic appendage of the nymph, but rather an insect resulting from a new model. The creative power throws aside the old moulds and replaces them by others, fashioned with fresh care, in accordance with plans of an inexhaustible variety. ”

“ The male of the genus, in whom we should expect the requirements of the young to develop the highest aptitudes, is as useless as a butterfly, whose family costs so little to establish. The actual distribution of instinct upsets our most reasonable previsions.
It upsets our expectations so completely that we are surprised to find in the dung-beetle the noble prerogative which is lacking in the bee tribe. The mates of several species of dung-beetle keep house together and know the worth of mutual labour. Consider the male and female Geotrupes, which prepare together the patrimony of their larvæ ”

“ They are flat, bow-shaped, supplied with powerful nervures and armed on the outside with five strong teeth. If a vigorous effort be needed to remove an obstacle or to force a way through the thickest part of the heap, the Dung-beetle makes use of his elbows, that is to say, he flings his toothed legs to right and left and clears a semicircular space with an energetic sweep. Room once made, a different kind of work is found for these same limbs: they collect armfuls of the stuff raked together by the shield and push it under the insect’s belly, between the four hinder legs. ”

“ What indeed are the Copris’ pills but eggs of another sort, in which the nutritive mass of the white and the yolk is replaced by a pot of preserved foodstuffs? Here the Dung-beetles rival the birds and even surpass them. Instead of producing from within themselves, merely by the mysterious processes of nature, that which will provide for the latter growth of their young, they are actively and openly industrious, and by dint of their own skill provide food for their grubs which will achieve the adult form without other assistance. They know nothing of the long and tortuous process of incubation ”

“ I am reduced to piecing together my incomplete observations and filling up the gaps by analogy.2 The little that I have seen, combined with my study of other Dung-beetles in captivity—Gymnopleuri, Copres and Onthophagi—is summed up in what follows.
The ball which is destined to contain the egg is not made in public, in the hurry and confusion of the dung-yard. It is a work of art and supreme patience, demanding concentration and scrupulous care, both alike impossible in the thick of the crowd. One needs solitude in [35] order to think out a plan of operations and set to work. ”

“ After the notabilities of the Dung-beetle tribe, if we omit the Geotrupes, who belong to a different clan, there remains, within the very limited radius of my observation, the Onthophagus rabble, of which I could gather a dozen different species around my house. What will these small fry teach us?
Even more zealous than their big companions, they are the first that hasten to exploit the heap left by the passing Mule. They come in crowds and stay a long time working under the spread table that gives them shade and coolness. Turn over the heap with your foot. ”

“ As I shall presently relate, I have subjected the Dung-beetle to far more serious trials than that of getting his ball into a hole; I have confronted him with much graver difficulties than that of mounting a slope, which is sheer sport to the obstinate Sisyphus, who seems to delight in the rough gymnastics involved in climbing steep places, [15] as if the ball thereby grew firmer and accordingly increased in value; I have created artificial situations in which the insect had the uttermost need of help ”

“ To guide the modeller there is something better than a set of tools: there is what I would call the bump, the genius of the animal.
Phanæus Milo laughs at difficulties. He does more: he laughs at our classifications. The word Dung-beetle implies a lover of dung. He sets no value on it, either for his own use or for that of his offspring. What he wants is the sanies of corpses. He is to be found under the carcasses of birds, dogs or cats, in the company of the undertakers-in-ordinary. The gourd of which I give a drawing overleaf was lying in the earth under the remains of an owl. ”

“ This love of the unscreened sun has its blissful side, as the insect, drunk with heat, shows from time to time by exultant transports; but it has also certain disadvantages. I have never witnessed any quarrel at harvest-time [49] between next-door neighbours, when these were Copres or Geotrupes. Working in the dark, each is ignorant of what is happening beside him. The rich morsel secured by one of them cannot arouse the envy of his neighbours, since it is not perceived. This perhaps explains the pacific relations among Dung-beetles who work in the gloomy depths of the heap. ”

“ There is no picking and choosing: what the mandibles encounter they crunch. And this goes on indefinitely, always with an unimpaired appetite, so that the insect attains the perfect stage without a check. When the back is black as ebony and the belly an amethystine violet, I set my Geotrupes at liberty. I am filled with amazement by what he has taught me.
An inverse experiment was essential. A [222] Dung-beetle thrives on rotten leaves; shall I be equally successful in rearing an eater of vegetable refuse on dung? ”

“ Heedless of hygiene as the Arab, who was one of his ancestors, the Provençal peasant does not suspect the danger. Fortunately, the Dung-beetle, that faithful observer of the Mosaic law, is at work. It is his to remove from sight, it is his to bury the microbe-laden matter. Supplied with digging-implements far superior to the paddle which the Israelite was to carry at his girdle when urgent business called him from the camp, he hastens to the spot and, as soon as man is gone, excavates a pit wherein the infection is swallowed up and rendered harmless. ”

“ When they have discharged their eggs, they appear much less, and are not furnished with that oil they before abounded with. The males have little, if any of it, therefore are not proper for the purpose. This insect is of a blue colour, and found in the fields during the months of April and May, in the state I have mentioned; the blue colour is not shining and beautiful as that on the belly and legs of the blue dung beetle, but of a fine mazarine blue, without that polish. ”

“ Many kinds of insects are to be found here in England, in great plenty, who, it is highly probable, by a close enquiry into their natures might be rendered very serviceable to us, either mediately or immediately. The blue Dung Beetle (Scarabæus Stercorarius of Linnæus) found in great plenty in July, under horse-dung and cow-dung, it is not unlikely may yield effects, either in medicine or dyeing, that at present we are ignorant of. It is certain, it abounds with salts that are strong and pungent ”

“ No one will come to her assistance in her untiring work of excavation; but at the same time the rubbish has to be shot outside, so that the shaft may be always clear. This is needed first for the going and coming during the storage of victuals and later for the easy emergence of the offspring.
Boring and carrying would be too much for a single worker: the warm season would be too short for such a task. Thus, thereupon, long prepared by the events of each successive year, a flash of light penetrates the Dung-beetle’s brain. ”

“ They form these pellets while the dung remains moist, and leave them to harden in the sun before they attempt to roll them. In their rolling of them from place to place, both they and the balls may frequently be seen tumbling about over the little eminences that are in their way. They are not, however, easily discouraged, and by repeating their attempts usually surmount the difficulties. [90]
Büchner speaks of the fact that dung-beetles co-operate in their work as one that is well established, but gives no authorities or references. ”

“ I therefore opened hundreds of balls rolled by the dung beetles and others out of holes dug under my eyes, and never, never did I find either a central niche or an egg in the pellets. They are invariably rough heaps of food, hastily shaped, with no particular structure inside them, merely provender with which the beetles shut themselves up to enjoy an orgy in peace for some days. They covet and steal them with an energy which they certainly would not show if it implied new family cares. ”