|
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.〔Frolov, A.V. ("Subfamily Scarabaeinae: atlas of representatives of the tribes (Scarabaeidae)" ). Retrieved on 2007-08-02.〕 Dung beetles are currently the only known non-human animal to navigate and orient themselves using the Milky Way. == Taxonomy == Dung beetles are not a single taxonomic group; dung feeding is found in a number of families of beetles, so the behaviour cannot be assumed to have evolved only once. * Coleoptera (order), beetles * * Scarabaeoidea (superfamily), scarabs (most families in the group do not use dung) * * * Geotrupidae (family), "earth-boring dung beetles"〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.kerbtier.de/cgi-bin/enFSearch.cgi?Fam=Geotrupidae )〕 * * * Scarabaeidae (family), "scarab beetles" (not all species use dung) * * * * Scarabaeinae (subfamily), "true dung beetles"〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://scarabaeinae.lifedesks.org/ )〕 * * * * Aphodiinae (subfamily), "small dung beetles" (not all species use dung)〔Skelley, P. E. (Aphodiinae. ) Generic Guide to New World Scarab Beetles. University of Nebraska State Museum. 2008 Version.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「dung beetle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|