earth-boring dung/scarab beetles

Description:

This beetle is present in the whole Europe. The colour of Anoplotrupes stercorosus is blue-black, while the underside is usually metallic blue. The elytra have longitudinal slightly dotted grooves. The adults grow up to 12–20 millimetres (0.47–0.79 in) long and can be encountered from June through next Spring, mainly in beech forests. This dung beetle feeds on feces, rotting fungi and tree lymph of the host-plants. In Spring they laid eggs in chambers at the end of about 70–80 centimetres (28–31 in) long corridor built in the soil, where feces of herbivorous and omnivorous animals are placed in to feed the larvae, that overwinter and pupate in Spring, requiring a year for the whole process

Habitat:

Anoplotrupes stercorosus is a species of earth-boring dung beetles belonging to the family Geotrupidae subfamily Geotrupinae.

Notes:

Earth-boring scarab beetles : ( http://tolweb.org/Geotrupidae/9546 )