Fumble While They Tumble
One
of the most amazing things I have seen while hiking on the Ouachita Trail are tumblebugs,
which are a scarab beetle. Tumblebugs are also called dung beetles. Me and my
hiking friends watched in amazement as the two beetles seemed to be working
against each other to roll their masterpiece. Their black thick-bodies were
poop-encrusted. As a kid, I called them turd tumblers. A Google search later
educated us on their nasty habits that are necessary for their survival. When
they find poop they mold it into balls, roll the balls away and bury them for
future eating or for laying their eggs in. When the eggs hatch, the kids find themselves
surrounded by food. Lots of tumblebug species exist, and some specialize in
tumbling pre-formed, pellet-like droppings of rabbits, sheep, and deer. It is a
good day for them to find the pellet-like droppings, less work for them than
forming their own balls.
Our
tumblebug discovery on the trail stopped us to watch the show. The two
tumblebugs were rolling their ball up the path, one on top and one on bottom
and it was a funny thing to see. The trail was steep and occasionally the ball
got out of control and rolled backwards, carrying the tumblebugs with it.
Sometimes the two bugs canceled out one another's efforts, but other times one
bug hung on while the other one took a tumble. In fact, in the picture below if
you look beneath the pushing bug you can see a second tumblebug, upside-down, just
in the way.
The
tumblebugs we saw on the trail made dung-tumbling seem a disorganized, grungy
business. Not all tumblebugs roll balls of dung. Some species live in tunnels
dug beneath piles of poop and are called tunnelers. Others simply live in the
poop and are called dwellers. The ball rollers we saw are rollers.
"Rollers"
roll and bury a dung ball either for food or for laying eggs in them. During
the rolling process other rollers may try to steal the ball, so that explains
why the rollers seen on our hike seemed to be in a hurry. In some species the
male and female roll the ball together, while in others the male does most of
the rolling, with the female sometimes hitching a ride. When a spot with soft
soil is found the ball is buried. Then the male and female mate underground,
and the female lays eggs inside the ball. In some species the beetles remain in
the tunnel guarding their offspring.
Tumblebugs
undergo complete metamorphosis. The egg is inserted into a ball of dung, a
grub-type larva hatches and eats the dung the ball is made from, hollowing it
out, and when the grub grows to a certain size it metamorphoses into a pupa, a
strange-looking resting stage more like a grub than a beetle. Eventually the
pupa metamorphoses into a dung beetle. The dung beetle exits the ball of dung,
flies away, finds dung and a dung beetle of the other sex, and reproduces.
They
are not just unusual oddities; they do important work and people that are aware
regard them as desirable, beneficial insects. In parts of Texas studies show
that tumblebugs remove 80 percent of a grazing area's cattle droppings, and
that goes a long way in keeping down the numbers of disease-transmitting flies.
I
found a story online about a hiker finishing his morning poop and to his
amazement he barely got his breeches up before a tumblebug was in the middle of
his poop getting busy. The poop had not been on the ground more a few minutes,
and nothing was visible at its sides so obviously something was moving it from
below. The poop was bouncing around, but surely a tumblebug would not be at
work after less than three minutes. However, it was indeed a tumblebug. For
several minutes, the bug probed and nudged two of the hiker’s smaller creations
before settling on a much larger blob, beneath which he vanished entirely. The
hiker had to leave before the beetle completed its masterpiece. However,
judging from the zeal with which the tumble bug begun its job, the hiker was
sure that by the time he was off the trail the larvae would indeed be snug in a
turd ball, thanks to him.
Hikers
are supposed to be burying their poop! That is if they have time. If the
tumblebugs are attacking poop before a hiker can get his breeches up, should a
hiker bury the tumblebugs with the poop or just let it be. Inquiring hiker
minds want to know.
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