Behold the wondrous dung beetle

By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

CHULA VISTA, California — When most people hear you talk about beetles, they probably think you’re speaking about music. Actually, beetles are very important creatures in our eco-systems. As a species, they represent 25% of all the life forms found on this planet. For many peoples across the world, beetle larva is an important staple food.

As a genus, beetles can live in most parts of the world, except in marine and polar regions of the globe. Their diet is vast; some subsist on detritus feeders, breaking down animal and plant debris. Others can feed on particular kinds of carrion such as flesh or hide; some feed on wastes such as dung; others eat fungi, some on particular species of plants, others subsist on a wide range of plants. Beetles eat many agricultural pests, e.g., beetles in the family Coccinellidae (“ladybirds” or “ladybugs”) consume aphids, scale insects, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects that damage crops.

Today, we will focus on the famous dung beetle, known in ancient Egyptian times as the sacred scarab. In ecological terms, Dung beetles play a remarkable role in agriculture.  By burying and consuming dung, they improve the recycling and soil structure, keeping it healthy in the process.  They also protect livestock, such as cattle, by removing the dung, which, if left, could provide habitat for pests such as flies. For this reason, many nations introduced beetleS because of the practical benefits they provide for responsible animal husbandry. In developing countries, the beetle is especially important as an adjunct for improving standards of hygiene. The American Institute of Biological Sciences reports that dung beetles save the United States cattle industry an estimated US$380 million annually through burying above-ground livestock feces (Wikepedia).

Historically, one of the most popular amulets and images found in ancient Egyptian jewelry as well as coffin art, the sacred scarab has earned a special distinction.  According to Egyptian mythology, Ra (the Egyptian sun deity), rolls across the heavenly sky each day and is responsible for the daily rising of the sun.  Ra was self-generated. They believed that the dung beetle was only male in gender, and reproduced itself by depositing semen into a dung ball. The alleged self-creation of the beetle resembles the morning manifestation of Ra, who was also known as Khepri (“he who has come into being”). The ancients believed that Ra created himself out of nothing. Moreover, the dung ball rolled by a dung beetle resembles the sun. Plutarch wrote:

• The race of beetles has no female, but all the males eject their sperm into a round pellet of material that they roll up by pushing it from the opposite side, just as the sun seems to turn the heavens in the direction opposite to its own course, which is from west to east.[1]

The significance of the scarab and the celestial movements of the may also have a scientific basis! According to a report I heard on NPR the other day, the Australian Professor Eric Warrant spoke about a fascinating study a group of scientists started five years ago that tested the navigational skills of dung beetles. Warrant observes that the dung beetles have to remove the chosen piece of dung as quickly as possible since there is intense competition among the dung beetles. Every creature wants the dung for itself! (Sounds a lot like people, doesn’t it?) Many lazy beetles will wait and prey upon the workers and attempt to steal the dung ball (in what seems to be class warfare—MLS).

• Professor Eric Warrant: The beetles need to plot a course, “or they might accidentally circle back and thus lose a precious dung ball to another beetle. Otherwise, it might be like kicking a soccer ball back at your own goal post . . . What we discovered was that dung beetles can roll their balls of dung in straight lines by using the Milky Way as a compass queue.

• Melissa Block (host): The Milky Way, billions of stars that form a white streak across the sky, serve as a guide for these little harvesters of waste. It was understood earlier that both the sun and the moon serve as guides, but no one knew how dung beetles could follow a straight path when the moon isn’t out. So at the edge of the Kalahari, professor Warrant and the team built a small arena. 

• Professor Eric Warrant:  We tested them with and without a little  cardboard hat, which we put on top of their head with a piece of tape. And this little cardboard hat effectively blocked out the view of the starry sky. And when we did this, they rolled around and around and around in circles. They couldn’t keep a straight path.

• Block:  The Swedish scientists also tested dung beetles at a planetarium. They altered the star pattern on the ceiling and watched what the beetles did. Without the Milky Way, the beetles could not walk the straight and narrow.

In summary, Warrant suggests that other creatures may also use the Milky Way as a compass, but currently only dung beetles are known to do so. In terms of eco-spirituality, the Creator has endowed nature with remarkable gifts to help ensure its survival in a competitive world. Perhaps the ancient Egyptian’s intuitive association of the dung beetle and the celestial movements of the sun wasn’t too far off!

• O LORD, how manifold are Your works! With wisdom You have made them all; The earth is full of Your possessions” (Psalms 104:24).