The gentle art of the flightless dung beetle

When you drive around the Addo Elephant National Park there are signs on the road warning that the dung beetles have the right of way and you had better believe it.  They are often seen scurrying along the road looking for nice fresh piles of elephant or buffalo dung to make their balls.

It was interesting watching this guy make his dung ball from scratch, carefully breaking off pieces of dung and compacting them into the right shape.

King of his "castle"

If you want more information on these fascinating creatures click here for a post I did on them in 2008.

Ecological day - Flightless dung beetles

Dung Beetles are found all over South African and perform a vital cleaning up job, even if they do not realise it themselves. Not exactly a job I would like, but then I was not born into it.



The Addo Flightless Dung Beetle only occurs in the Eastern Cape Province, in a small area, but it is fairly common within it's range. This terrestrial invertebrate occurs in habitats such as the Fish River scrub and Spekboomveld. They often congregate in 100's in the Addo Elephant National Park, which is the best place to see these special beetles.

The dung beetle is a member of the families Bolboceratidae and Scarabaeidae.

It is quite common within it's very restricted distribution and range, mostly in the main game area of the Addo Elephant National Park, but it also occurs in the rest of the Greater Addo National Park.

The dung beetle has right of way on the roads, but are often driven over by careless motorists.


The Addo Flightless Dung Beetle adults gather at African Elephant dung for feeding and at Cape Buffalo dung for feeding and breeding.


These insects shape the dung into large round balls, which are then rolled away to be buried. See Port Elizabeth Daily Photo for more pics.




The dung beetles only nest once a year and in this time period they produce only one young beetle. Their conservation status is vulnerable as they depend on 2 large herbivores for survival: Elephant and Buffalo, of which there are fortunately plenty in the Addo Elephant National Park.



For more on Ecological Day visit Sonia at Leaves of Grass.