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Project Noah Nature School
Kheper nigroaeneus
3-4 cm Dung beetle with some flies riding on his back. Perhaps they are cleaning him after the last meal... Dung beetles completely rely on dung (!) for food for both themselves and their larvae and will lay their eggs in the balls or directly in the dung pile.
Found them around animal dropping. This period (the beginning of the summer) They are very active and it is possible to find a lot of them.
Dung beetles are vitally important to the environment as they clean up the majority of dung during the summer season. When they disappear for their winter sleep termites take over the job of cleaning. Dung beetles can be broken down into four distinct groups, telecoprid, endocoprid, paracoprid and kleptocoprid. The endocoprids lay their eggs in a pile of dung, paracoprids dig down below a pile of dung, telecoprids roll the famous balls of dung and kleptocoprids steal the balls from the telecoprids. Photos taken in Hlane National Park. More interesting reading can be found here: http://www.sabisabi.com/wildfacts/dung-b...
Seems to be an "slacky life" to be a mite or a fly that favours beetles as their "pet" :) Thank you for the info Johan, very much appreciated!
The flies on the dung beetle are Jackal flies (Family Milichiidae) of which there are 13 species in Southern Africa.
I will go for your suggestion Fanie! Thank you and thanks to Bayucca for the input :)
Looks not bad, Fanie. I cannot judge the proportions head/body and the texture of the body, but for me it looks even more than not bad...
Spotted on Nov 3, 2013
Submitted on Nov 7, 2013
