Dung

This is the African Flightless Dung Beetle. It walks everywhere and is quite rare, indeed endangered, today. It's found in the Addo Elephant Park where we spent today.

It's a big beastie, up to 4 cms long. As the name implies it lives on dung, specifically elephant at Addo. The coarse dung is its favourite. Elephants oblige. The beetles do actually push pieces ahead of them and bury it for future use. It has a very purposeful walk.

The young are born in the dung and live there for several months until big enough to leave. It's numbers have declined as elephants have, although tarred roads are supposed to be better for it as the dung is easier to push than over gravel tracks. So the little darlings don't get exhausted. Visitors are advised not to drive through the dung as there may be a beetle inside!

Seeing two of these was a treat even though the 200 or so elephants cavorting at a water hole pushed them close.