Chapter 3 Dung beetle

1. The ball dung beetle was first mentioned by people six or seven thousand years ago.Farmers in ancient Egypt, when they were irrigating their fields in spring, often saw a fat black insect passing by them, busy pushing something like a ball back.They were of course surprised to notice this grotesque spinning object, like a farmer in Browins today. In the past, the Egyptians imagined that the sphere was a model of the earth, and the movements of the dung beetles coincided with the movements of the planets in the sky.They thought this beetle was sacred because it had so much astronomical knowledge, so they called it the "sacred beetle."At the same time, they believed that the spheres thrown by the beetles and rolled on the ground contained eggs, from which the young beetles came out.But in reality, it's just its food pantry.There are no eggs in it.

This ball is not a delicious food.Because the work of the beetle is to collect dirt from the soil surface, this ball is formed by carefully rolling up the garbage on the road and in the field. The method of making this ball is as follows: in front of its flat head, there are six teeth, which are arranged in a semicircle, like a curved nail handle, used to dig and cut things.The beetle uses them to throw away what it does not want and to collect what it has chosen.Its arched front legs are also useful tools, as they are very strong and also have five serrations on the outer ends.So, if a lot of force is needed to move some obstacle, the beetle uses its arms.It turns its toothed arms from side to side, sweeping out a small area with a powerful sweeping motion.And there it piled up the material it had raked.Then, put it between the four hind paws to push.These legs are long and slender, especially the last pair, slightly curved, with pointed claws at the front.The beetle then presses the material under its body with its hind legs, rubbing and rotating it so that it forms a spherical shape.After a while, a pellet grows to the size of a walnut, and soon to the size of an apple.I have seen some gluttonous guys make the ball the size of a fist.

When the balls of food are made, they must be moved to the proper place.And so the beetle began to travel.It grasps the ball with its hind legs, then walks with its front legs, with its head bowed down, buttocks raised, and it walks backwards.Push the objects piled up in the back to the left and right in turn.Everyone thought it would choose a flat or not very inclined road.this is not the truth!It is always taking steep slopes and climbing places that are almost impossible to climb.This stubborn guy wants to go this way.This ball is very heavy, and it is pushed up step by step with great care, to a considerable height, and it often walks backwards.A few careless movements and the labor is in vain: the ball rolls down, dragging the beetle down.Climb up again, only to fall down again.It climbs up again and again like this, a little glitch, and all previous efforts will be wasted, a grass root can trip it up, and a slippery rock can make it stumble.Both the ball and the beetle fell and mingled, sometimes after ten or twenty continued efforts before finally succeeding.Sometimes it doesn't run back to find another level road until its efforts become hopeless.

Sometimes the dung beetle seems to be a cooperative animal, and this happens quite often.When a beetle's ball has been made, it leaves its kind, pushing the harvest backwards.A neighbor who is about to start work, seeing this situation, will suddenly abandon his work and run to the side of the rolling ball to help the owner of the ball.Its help is of course welcome.But it is not a real partner, but a robber.You must know that it takes hard work and endurance to make a ball yourself!It's much easier to steal a ready-made one, or go to a neighbor's for a meal.Some thief beetles use very cunning means, and some simply use force!

Sometimes a thief flew down from above and slammed the ball owner down.Then it squats itself on the ball, with its front legs close to its chest, waiting for the snatch to happen, ready to fight each other.If the owner of the ball gets up to grab the ball, the robber will punch it and hit it from behind.So the owner got up again, pushed and shook the ball, and the ball rolled.The robber may thus tumble.Then, there is a wrestling match.The two beetles tugged at each other, their legs twisted, their joints entangled, their horny carapaces collided and rubbed against each other, making the sound of metal rubbing against each other, the victorious beetle climbed to the top of the ball, and the thief beetle failed several times After being expelled, he had no choice but to run away to make his own little projectile again.Several times I saw a third beetle appear and rob the ball like a robber.

But there are also times when thieves will sacrifice some time and use cunning means to deceive.It pretends to help the driven man move food, through thyme-grown sands, through deep ruts and steep places, but in reality it uses very little force, mostly just sitting on the top of the ball Sightseeing, to a place suitable for collection, the owner began to dig down with its sharp-edged head and toothed legs, throwing sand and soil behind, while the thief hugged the ball and pretended to be dead.The burrow was dug deeper and deeper, and the working beetle was out of sight.Even though it sometimes goes to the ground to have a look, the sleeping beetle next to the ball does not move, and feels very relieved.But the owner has been away for a long time, and the thief took this opportunity to push the ball away as quickly as the thief was afraid of being caught.If the owner catches up to it--the theft is discovered--it changes positions quickly, looking as if it is innocent, because the ball is rolling down the slope, and it is only trying to stop it!So the two "partners" moved the ball back again, as if nothing happened.

If the thief escaped safely, the owner would have to admit that he was unlucky.It wipes its cheeks, takes some air, flies away, and starts all over again.I am quite envious and envious of its indomitable quality. Finally, its food was stored safely.Storerooms are earth cavities dug in soft or sandy soil.It was made the size of a fist, with a short path leading to the ground, just wide enough to hold a ball.The food was pushed in, and it sat there, and the entrance and exit were plugged with some waste, and the balls just filled the room, and the food was piled up from the floor to the ceiling.A narrow path is left between the food and the wall, where the hosts sit, two at most, usually just one.The holy beetle feasted day and night, almost for a week or two, without stopping for a moment.

2. The pear I have already said that the ancient Egyptians believed that the eggs of the sacred beetle were contained in the sphere I have just described.This has proven to me otherwise.About the real situation of beetle laying eggs, I happened to discover one day. I knew a little boy who was shepherding sheep. He often came to help me in his spare time.Once, on a Sunday in June, he came to me with a strange thing in his hand, which looked like a small pear, but which had lost its fresh color and was brown with decay.But it feels solid and looks good, although the ingredients don't seem to have been carefully selected.He told me that there must be an egg in it, because there was a white egg the size of a grain of wheat hidden in the same pear, which was accidentally broken when digging the ground.

The next morning, just before dawn, I went out with the shepherd boy to investigate this fact. A sacred beetle's crypt was found soon, or as you know, there will always be a pile of fresh soil on top of its burrow.My companion used my knife to shovel into the ground and dug desperately, while I fell on the ground, because it was easy to see what was being dug out.A cave was dug, and in the damp soil, I found a refined pear.I really will never forget that this is the first time I have seen the strange work of a female beetle!When excavating ancient Egyptian relics, if I found that the sacred beetle was carved with jade, my excitement would not be greater.

We continued our search and found a second cave.This time the female beetle was next to the pear and hugged the pear tightly.Of course, this was done before it left. There is no need to doubt that this pear is the egg of the dung beetle.During this summer, I found at least a hundred of these eggs. The ball-like pears are made from the waste that people leave in the fields, but the material is finer, so as to prepare food for grubs.When it comes out of the egg, it can't find food by itself, so the mother wraps it in the most suitable food, and it can eat immediately without starving. The eggs are placed at the narrower end of the pear.Every living seed, no matter a plant or an animal, needs air, and there are countless small holes distributed on the shell of a bird's egg.If the dung beetle egg is in the last part of the pear, it suffocates, because the material here is tightly bound and encrusted.So the mother beetle prepares a well-ventilated little room with thin walls for her little grub to live in. At the beginning of her life, even in the center of the pear, there is a little air, when these are no longer enough for the delicate little ones. The grub is exhausted, it has to go to the center to eat, it is already very strong, and it can control some air by itself.

Of course, there are good reasons why pears have a big end and are covered with hard shells.The burrows of dung beetles are extremely hot, sometimes reaching boiling points.This kind of food, after three or four weeks, will be dry and inedible.If the first meal is not soft food, but something terribly hard like a stone, the poor larva will starve to death for having nothing to eat.In August, I found many such victims. The bitter thing was roasted in a closed oven. To reduce this danger, the female beetle desperately used her strong and fat forearm to press the outer skin of the pear. layer, pressing it into a protective crust, like a chestnut shell, against the heat outside.On hot summer days, the housekeeper would keep the bread fresh by placing it in a tightly closed pan.And insects have their own way of accomplishing the same thing: preserving the family's bread by pressing it into a pot. I have watched a beetle at work in a nest, so know how it does pears. It collects building materials, closes itself underground, and can concentrate on the task at hand, probably by two methods.As usual, in the natural environment, the beetle rubs it into a ball and pushes it to the adapted place in the usual way.When pushing, the surface has been a little hard, and some mud and fine sand have stuck to it, which is often seen later, not only in places close to the collected materials, but also places for storage can be found here. In this case, its job is to bundle the material and carry it into the hole.What happened later was especially strange.One day I saw it hide a shapeless piece of material in its crypt.The next day, when I arrived at its work site, I found that the artist was working. The shapeless piece of material had successfully turned into a pear. The part of the pear that is close to the floor has been covered with fine sand.The rest of it, too, has been polished like glass, which shows that it hasn't rolled the pear finely over it, it's just been molded into shape. When it shaped the pear, it struck it with Dazu light Joe, just as it shaped the ball in the sun before. In my own studio, I fill a glass bottle with soil, make an artificial burrow for the female beetle, and leave a small hole to observe its movements, so I can see the various procedures of its work . The beetle starts by making a full ball, then makes a ring around the pear, applying pressure until the ring becomes a deep groove, forming a bottleneck-like appearance.This way, a bump is made on one end of the ball.In the center of the bulge, pressure is added to form a crater, that is, a cavity, with thick edges, and as the cavity becomes deeper, the edges become thinner, and finally a pocket is formed.It smooths the inside of the pouch, in which it lays its eggs, and the mouth of the pouch, which is the end of the pear, is plugged with a bundle of fibers. There is a reason for such a crude stopper to be used. All other parts of the beetle have been slapped heavily with their legs, except here.Because the layer of eggs ends toward the seal, the grub will feel pain if the plug presses down deep.So the beetle plugged its mouth, but did not knock the plug down. 3. The growth of the beetle. After the beetle lays eggs in the pear for about a week or ten days, the eggs hatch into grubs. It does not hesitate to start eating the surrounding walls. It is very clever because it always goes in the thick direction. Eat without making the pear out of the hole and letting yourself fall out of the gap.After a while it became very fat, but it was very ugly, with a bulge on its back, and its skin was so transparent that if you held it up to the light you could see its internal organs.If the ancient Egyptians had had the opportunity to see the fat and white grub, in this state of development, they would not have guessed the grandeur and beauty of the future beetle. When shedding its skin for the first time, this small insect has not yet grown into a complete beetle, although the shape of the entire beetle can already be discerned.Few insects are more beautiful than this little creature, with the wing disc in the center like a folded wide tie, and the forearms beneath the head.The translucent yellow is the color of honey, and it looks like it is carved from amber.It remained in this state for about four weeks, and then shed another layer of skin. At this time, its color is red and white. Before it turns into the black color of sandalwood, it needs to change clothes several times. These days, it lives in pear-shaped nests in the ground.It is very eager to break away from the hard-shelled carapace nest and run into the daylight.But its success depends on the environment. The period when it is ready to come out is usually in August.August is usually the driest and hottest month of the year.Therefore, if there is no rain to soften the soil, if you want to break the hard shell and break the wall, it is impossible to rely on the strength of this insect alone. It has no way to break the solid wall.For even the softest material becomes an impenetrable wall, which, when burned in a summer furnace, has already become a hard brick. Of course, I have also done this kind of experiment, put the dry hard shell in a box, keep it dry, sooner or later, I heard a sharp friction sound in the box, which is the prisoner's head and front feet. There seems to be no progress after two or three days with the rake scraping the wall. So I added some boost to a pair of them, and poked a hole in the wall with a knife, but neither of these two critters made any more progress than the rest. In less than two weeks, all shells were silent.These prisoners who have exhausted their strength are already dead. So I took some shells that were as hard as before, wrapped them in a damp cloth, put them in a bottle, and corked them with a cork. After the moisture soaked through, I removed the damp cloth inside and put them in the bottle again.The test was a complete success, and the shell was soaked in moisture before being broken by the prisoner.It bravely supports its body on its legs, uses its back as a lever, and looks for a little push and bump. Finally, the wall breaks into pieces.In each trial, the beetles were freed from it. The same is true when these shells are underground in their natural environment.When the soil is baked dry by the August sun and hard as a brick, it is impossible for the insects to escape from their prison.But once in a while when it rains, the hard shell returns to its former softness, and they struggle with their legs and push their backs, so that they can get free. When it first came out, it didn't care about the food.At this time, what it needs most is to enjoy the sun.Run into the sun and stay motionless for warmth. After a while, it will eat.No one taught it, it will do it, like its predecessors, to make a food ball, also to dig a cache, to store food, without learning at all, it will be able to do its work completely.