
12 STRIKING FACTS ABOUT DUNG BEETLES
Dung beetles are often used as model organisms in biology and ecology and they have charismatic behavioral and biological features, which make them stand out among other animals. The peculiarity of dung beetles can be quickly comprehended from the most striking facts about them summarized below.


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With over 6000 species of which 30–50% are still undescribed, dung beetle diversity exceeds the diversity of extant mammals (~5500 species) and approaches that of birds (~9800 species).
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Besides impressive species diversity, dung beetles are also impressively abundant: a single pile of fresh elephant dung can contain up to 7000 scarabaeine individuals.
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Dung beetles are the only known animals, beside humans, that use the Milky Way for navigation (Dacke et al., 2013)
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The Australian dung beetle project is worth special attention. Native Australian dung beetles are adapted to only feed on the dung of marsupials, the native Australian mammals. The native dung beetles were not able to utilize the dung of cattle that was relatively recently introduced to Australia by the Europeans. Undecomposed dung began to accumulate on pastures in high amounts, which stimulated pollution, uncontrolled breeding of pestilent flies and worms and the reduction of grazing areas for cattle. To fight this problem, dung beetles from Africa, which were capable of utilizing cattle dung, were introduced to Australia (Bornemissza, 1976).



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Dung beetles are extremely popular beetles in science: they are the second most cited subfamily of beetles on Google Scholar (Tarasov and Genier, 2015).
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The global ecosystem service of dung recycling provided by dung beetles is valued at $380 million annually in the US (Losey and Vaughan, 2006).