Which dung beetle will prevail in this battle for a ball of poop? Watch this NatGeo Wild video and make your best guess. The two creatures, most likely copper dung beetles, were filmed fighting over their treasure in South Africa’s Djuma Game Reserve.
Dung is a valuable resource, used as food and as a nursery for beetle babies. Each fighter in this video both intends to roll off with the grand prize, and they’re surprisingly relentless… Dung is so important to these insects that [Natural History Museum curator Max] Barclay compares the dung pile to a bag of money dropped in the street. “Everyone would grab as much as they could, get it somewhere safe, and then come back for more…”
There are over 7,000 species of dung beetles on Earth, and they’re the first known animals to navigate via the Milky Way.
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