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Great Australian Dung Beetle Challengedungbeetles@landcareaustralia.com.auREGISTER
Dung Beetle Dictionary

Stinking Facts

  • Every hour over 12 million dung pads are dropped by cattle onto Australian soil
  • Scientists have counted more than 16,000 dung beetles in one small elephant poo
  • There are over 7000 different species of dung beetles worldwide
  • One cow poo can produce over 2,000 flies – Yuk!
  • When cows were introduced to Australia in 1788 there were no beetles here that were used to eating their sloppy, smelly dung. Our Native Australian Dung Beetles were used to the small, dry and clean dung of our native animals such as the Kangaroo and did not like this new poo! This is why scientists had to bring in new dung beetles from overseas.
  • Dung beetles are now even being used to try and clean up dog poo. When it rains dog poo washes off the ground and into drains, ending up on our beaches. Over half the germs in the surf after heavy rain is from dog poo – gross!

You will need

Find out more

Jokes

  • What is brown and sounds like a bell?
  • Dung

Whats for dinner?

Dung Beetles just love fresh dung. They eat the dung by squeezing it in their powerful little mouths and drinking the juices that come squirting out. The solid parts of the dung are then squeezed again and swallowed.

Home sweet home

Dung beetles also make homes out of dung. There are two main types of dung beetles:

Tunnelers – These dung beetles dig tunnels into the ground under the dung pad. The female stays down in the tunnel arranging all the dung whilst the male beetle scoops it up and passes it down.

Rollers – These beetles roll their dung up into very tight balls and roll them away from the dung pad. These are then buried or hidden in grass.


Pooper Scoopers!

Dung beetles work like wonderful pooper scoopers by eating and burying dung. This is important as there is a lot of dung dropped on Australian soil everyday - over 2 billion cow pads alone, not to mention all the other dung! So with all these droppings dropping it is important that they are broken down. If dung is not eaten or buried by Dung Beetles it can cause some big problems in our environment. When it rains unburied dung can wash out of paddocks and into rivers that we use for our drinking water and other fun things like swimming.

Unburied dung provides a breeding place for nasty bush flies and the grass that grows around unburied dung pads tastes yucky to cows. Farmers love dung beetles as they help to make the soil on their farms much healthier. The digging and dung burying action of the beetles ensures that the soil is better aerated, the soil can absorb water more easily when it rains, and that the dung is more evenly dispersed amongst the soil (which works as a better fertiliser).


Teacher Resources

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