Rainbow Scarab

• Its colours are not pigments: they come from microscopic layers of the cuticle that split the light, just as soap bubbles do.
• Instead of rolling balls across the surface, it digs vertical tunnels directly beneath the dung and takes the material down, a way of life known as tunnelling.
• The burial of dung by dung beetles recycles nutrients, aerates the soil and cuts down pasture flies, an ecological service valued at hundreds of millions of euros a year.
• Its metallic green, coppery and golden colours are structural colour, and they have earned it the name of rainbow scarab.
• The male bears a curved horn on its head; as in the bull-headed dung beetle, there are large long-horned males that fight and small hornless males that rely on sneaking.
• It is a tunneller, not a roller: it digs vertical tunnels beneath the food source and takes the dung down to the bottom, where the female builds brood balls.
• The pair cooperate in the digging and the provisioning.
• It is used in forensic entomology studies, because its presence beneath a corpse helps to narrow down the time elapsed.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Meadows, pasture and woodland edges of eastern North America

Sources consulted: Universidad de Florida, Featured Creatures; Price (2009); Hoback et al.