Crossword clues for dung beetle
dung beetle
Wiktionary
n. A type of beetle of the family Scarabaeidae noted for rolling dung into spherical balls and pushing it.
WordNet
n. any of numerous beetles that roll balls of dung on which they feed and in which they lay eggs
Wikipedia
Dung beetles are beetles that feed partly or exclusively on dung. A dung beetle can bury dung 250 times heavier than itself in one night.
Many dung beetles, known as rollers, roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or brooding chambers. Others, known as tunnelers, bury the dung wherever they find it. A third group, the dwellers, neither roll nor burrow: they simply live in manure. They are often attracted by the dung collected by burrowing owls. Dung Beetles can grow to 3 cm long and 2 cm wide.
All the species belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea; most of them to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae (scarab beetles). As most species of Scarabaeinae feed exclusively on feces, that subfamily is often dubbed true dung beetles. There are dung-feeding beetles which belong to other families, such as the Geotrupidae (the earth-boring dung beetle). The Scarabaeinae alone comprises more than 5,000 species.
Dung beetles are currently the only known non-human animal to navigate and orient themselves using the Milky Way.
Dung beetles are any of various insects of the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, most of which feed on animal droppings.
Dung beetle(s) may also refer to:
- Dung Beetles (video game), a 1982 computer game
- Dung Beetles, characters from the Conker video game series
- "Dung Beetle", a song from the album It Doesn't Matter Anymore by The Supernaturals
Usage examples of "dung beetle".
It ambled on slowly, and paused under the cacti to poke its reptilian face into the empty shell of a dung beetle.
Nodding, Duiker found himself watching a dung beetle struggle heroically to push aside a fragment of palm bark.
Since the invention of the dung beetle, which had in fact happened not too far away, it was probable that no creature had ever carried so much weight.
While it was still more than two feet away, one of the green tendrils swooped down on it, and a second later the bewildered dung beetle was being lifted through the air, the end of the tendril coiled round its midriff like a python.