WEBVTT - Dung Beetle Mania! 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:12.840 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.080 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.400 this week we were talking about a very ancient creature, 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.800 a creature that's that's potent with symbolism and power, and 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.720 then when you get down and analyze its biology, it's 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.360 it's even more amazing. And yet somehow I have had 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:32.120 a terrible habit of not really giving these animals a 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:36.000 second glance um or any kind of a deeper look 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.000 in all my time just reading about stuff I know. 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.360 And yeah, they are potent with symbolism, and they're potent 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.760 with pooh in they turn to be really interesting little 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:52.200 characters who are doing a number of clever things with feces. Yeah, 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:54.800 we're of course talking about dung beetles. And really, I mean, 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.040 you can take any lead in you want with these animals. 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.440 You're you into mummies, you into Egyptology, Dune beat? Are 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.200 you into poop and poop related science? Du I mean 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.800 that covers I think at least of the listeners right there. 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:10.440 If you're if you're not into mummies, then you're into 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.240 poop one of the two. Oh yeah, and I guess 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.679 the subset of this would be like you into dancing 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.120 on your poop beetles, Yeah, you into or maybe you 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.640 want a space angle. There's a space angle coming up too. 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.040 I mean, dung beetles really have it all. And and 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.800 I feel bad for not really not really giving them a, 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:28.680 you know, a second look this whole time, even though 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.559 you know, I've definitely been fascinated by a various uh 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.200 Egyptian topics in the past, and and you see the 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.440 scare of beetle everywhere, and for some reason, I never thought, hey, 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.759 maybe I should look into the symbolism of that scared beetle. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.319 I'm always more distracted by any of the other um 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:48.280 items in the rich iconography. Yeah, ancient Egyptians they really 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.400 exalted dung beetles because they witnessed them doing two things 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:58.000 which really captive captivated ancient Egyptian imagination, and it overlaid 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.600 this more sort of poetic interpretation. And of these two 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.760 things that they saw these dung beetles doing, first they 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:09.280 saw them rolling dung balls, right, and they were like, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.720 this is very interesting, and we've all seen video of this. 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.720 It pops up in just about every animal documentary ever 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:16.960 because it is it's fascinating and kind of humorous to 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.440 watch them pedal it with their their phind legs. Yeah. 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:25.600 And second, they observe these dung beetles dancing on top 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.360 of it, and they thought, maybe this is a kind 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.800 of worshiping of the sun. And then they put it 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.960 together with huh, that that dung rolling could be linked 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:40.440 with nocturnal activity of Capri, the god of the rising sun. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:45.120 So this scare beetle god was believed to push the 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.639 setting sun along the sky in the same manner as 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.760 the beatle with his ball of dung. Alright, so they 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.799 saw a sort of a cosmic model and what the 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.480 scare beetle is doing because he already had this this idea, 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:05.160 the story of this god rolling the sun across the horizon. Right, 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.560 they see these little guys doing it in miniature, and 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:13.120 I think, ah, Yes. And moreover, unbeknownst to ancient Egyptians, 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.080 larvae might be laying inside of some of those balls 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.880 of dung. And what would happen as they would see 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:27.480 this completely fully formed beetle emerged from the ball And 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.560 they didn't realize that the larvae was undergoing a complete 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.799 metamorphos within that ball. So again they were ascribing these 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.880 sort of magical qualities to this beetle and saying, ah, 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.320 this must be some sort of rebirth. So they sort 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.840 of saw this kind of a spontaneous generation kind of 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.160 scenario where the young were just emerging from the ball 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.640 of dung. Yeah, and if they began to symbolize rebirth, yeah. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.960 And so this apparently becomes a prominent funerary decoration throughout 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.520 the New Kingdom, which went from about the fifty to 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.840 ten seventy b c. And during that time that you 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:06.160 see all these scare amulets placed over the heart of 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.200 a mummified the individual. The interesting thing about these heart 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.600 scared is that they were essentially kind of a magical hack, 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.680 like a spell, intended to just give you a little 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.520 leg up in the afterlife. Because we've we've discussed before, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:21.440 I think we went into it in the problem of 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.760 Hell that we're talking about various models of the afterlife. Um, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.560 the cosmology of ancient Egypt was was really rich, and 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.200 they have this this really elaborate afterlife, and there's a 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.160 judgment that takes place where your your your soul, your 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:39.880 heart is weighed against the feather of truth. Now, you'd 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.800 have to feel pretty sure about yourself to go into 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.080 that that scenario and and and feel that you're gonna 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.479 you're gonna triumph. And as you as we see in 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.719 in all the various funerary and practices of ancient Egypt. Uh, 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.040 those with the power to do so, we're all about 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.039 preparing themselves because the afterlife is going to be dangerous, 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.240 it's gonna be complex. You need your un your your servants, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.720 you need your goods, you need spells, you need all 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.760 of these things. So you're gonna so you're gonna enter 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.760 into your sarcophagus with his heart scared. That will serve 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.200 to give you just a little bit of like a 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.920 plus one or a plus two during that trial. Yeah, 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.720 if your heart wasn't so pure, perhaps this talisman, this 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.240 the scaub, would help to write things when your heart 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.680 was weighed against this feather. Yeah, otherwise you're annihilated. There's 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.479 no there's no even going to to hell. They're just 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.560 you're just gone. Isn't there like a little animal next 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.080 to or a little creature next to the scale that 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.279 gobbles up the heart? If it if it's not a 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.360 worthy one. Yeah, the crocodile headed uh I believe his 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.479 name was I may have that wrong. My apologies to 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.840 the crocodile headed devour of souls if that is the case. 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.640 So all of that should give everybody a good idea 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:56.839 of these humble dung beetles. And even though they have 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.640 a rich past in ancient Egypt, to day we give 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.880 them nary a thought. And we should because they have 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.760 been rolling these dung balls for something like thirty million 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.440 years and um, they have been astronomers in a sense, 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.719 and we'll get to that in a moment, but they 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.960 are pretty amazing. Let's look at some of their more 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:18.960 physical attributes. Yeah, and I want to add that they're 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.720 they're just about everywhere. You'll find dung beetles of one 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.000 type or another on every continent except Antarctica because obviously 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.360 they would have a tough time of it in Antarctica. 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:29.800 And in their use of dung, they play a vital 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.960 role in dealing with with our waste. They are they 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.520 are very important UH species, So they're not just mere 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:38.880 curios that just roll some dung around. They play an 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.080 important role in UH in the environment. Yeah, we'll look 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.680 at a specific example of that later too. So, yeah, 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.440 there are more than five thousand species of dung beetles, 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.840 and typical dung beetle appearance is a grooved shield, large 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:57.200 strong front limbs for digging and fighting, and elongated back 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.600 legs for holding onto dung balls while rolling them along. 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.160 They've got some long flying wings that are folded there 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.799 under hard wing covers. And some of the well known 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.960 families in the dung beetle super family are the stag 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.280 best and scab beetles. Uh. Their length can range from 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.480 about point zero zero four inches to two point four 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:23.240 inches and uh, they have six legs in total, usually 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.200 brown in color, but some of them can be brightly colored. Yeah, 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.560 some of them are quite beautiful. In fact, the rainbow 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.640 scarub actually has this this ter destined look to it, 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.240 like a piece of jewelry. Yeah, they can be really 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:41.840 gorgeous and very strong. The male Otho flags taurus can 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.880 pull one thousand onety one times its own body weight. 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.120 Now that is the equivalent of an average person pulling 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.400 six double decker buses full of people. Who So these 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.200 are powerful creatures, yeah, I mean compared to their size obviously. 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.040 And another interesting fact is that they are committed parents. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:02.920 And this is rather surprising because when we when you 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.760 think about the insect world, um, at least if you're 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.360 like me, you tend to think of just um from 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:13.040 a human perspective, almost like a cruel um, just heartless scenario. 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.840 I mean, there's there's no such thing as insect politics, uh, 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:21.040 to to quote Dr Brundle, But with these particular creatures, 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.280 with the Dunge beagles, one or both of the parents 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.200 stay with the larva until they are mature, which can 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.800 take up to four months. And uh, yeah, this is 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.840 quite unusual in the insect world. Yeah, almost. I mean 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.520 you can get really like, you can really project some 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.080 human nous onto this because it seems almost like a 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.080 little courting thing here. This is from the San Diego Zoo. 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.800 It says after a chance encounter at a dumb pet, 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.040 male and female rollers established a pair bond. The male 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.360 offers the female a giant sized brood ball of fiecies. 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.600 If she accepts it, they roll it away together or 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.920 the female rides on top of the ball. Well. They 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.839 It is a refreshingly sweet relationship compared to a lot 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.200 of other models of insect courtship. That come to mind 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.560 where everyone's getting there their head chewed off, that's what 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.679 I'm saying, torn off, yeah, um, yeah, And they'll find 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.280 a soft place to bury the ball before mating. Yeah, 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:16.840 and then they'll care for it. It's not just a 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.120 matter of just pumping your larva into the belly of 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.160 some sort of a host creature. There. There's almost again 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.599 to project kind of a family structure here. Yeah, and 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:33.000 certain cephalodis miss dung beetles even made for life so beautiful. Now, 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.040 I know what what everyone's thinking aboutre you're thinking. I know, 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.280 I didn't come into an episode about dung beetles to 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.600 hear about their family. I want to hear about the 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.040 consumption of pooh. How does that work? How does that 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.360 make sense? Right? Because it's a waste product to you 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.560 might easily say, this is something that another animal has 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.200 has sucked the life out of, and then this is 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.320 the husk of that of that that consumption. So so 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:58.840 what is there for a dung beetle to even consume? Well, 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.280 quite a lot, just because it's just I mean what 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:03.600 the important thing to take home here is that even 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.280 though it is a waste product, not all of the 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.600 nutrients are are missing, particularly when you look at herbi wars. 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.640 I mean herbivar poop is going to be you know, 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.880 consists mostly of undigestible vegetation, right, so you've got a 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.280 lot of plant material there, and you have water content 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.440 as well, which is going to be crucial in your 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:25.200 dry environments. Now, most species subsist almost exclusively on the 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.600 excrement of other organisms, though they can sometimes feast on carrion, 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:33.400 leaf litter, mushrooms or decaying fruit. Right, never human flesh, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.960 just straight up carnivorous scared beetles. If you saw that 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.600 in The Mummy the movie. Um, don't take that to 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:45.960 the bank. Yeah. Um. They can have really specific appetites 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.720 for poop, so you can't just assume that you put 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:50.560 a big pile of poop in front of them and 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.640 they'll just roll away with it and be happy with it. 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.559 And in Australia in seventeen seventy eight they found this 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.080 out the hard way, And the reason for that is 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.240 that they had I wor did a bunch of cows 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:06.200 and other large livestock that were not indigenous to the area, 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.079 and they just these things are gonna poop everywhere, and 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.199 they thought, well, the scare beetles, that the dung beetles 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.720 will take care of this, right, sure, but this the 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:14.720 dung beetles were like, no way, I don't know what 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.760 this is. It doesn't smell right to me, and they 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.040 basically turned their noses up at it. What happened is 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.600 that in that part of Australia they had a huge 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.360 infestation of flies and other parasites that moved in and 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.360 said well, I'll take it, and they ended up having 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:36.000 to import uh, dung beetles that would eat the exprement 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.840 of these cows and other large livestock. Well, that's just 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.480 another page from a familiar book. When we start messing 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.400 around with the ecological structure. Uh, then things are out 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.800 of whack. A little more cold rot water because the 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:50.600 bath is too hot, a little more hot because it's 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.839 too cold, and then the bath is overflowed. Yeah, there's 0:11:53.880 --> 0:12:00.600 just one factory cascade. Indeed. Now they also they also 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.040 sort of like a certain scent profile to their dung, 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:06.640 and a lot of that has to do with the 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.840 diet of the organism. Yeah, well they like it strong, correct, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.640 they do. In fact, many species of dung beetle prefer 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.920 omnivore dung such as human dung or or your monkey dung. 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.160 Uh and uh, and this is actually going to be 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.000 more odorous dunk stinky, you're dune, Yeah, because it does 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.040 have that plant material and has the meat, and it 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.640 has all of the bacteria that is breaking it down 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.040 and making it very smelly. But how do we know 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.560 that they prefer it? Well, some very committed scientists, including 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.440 researcher Why Hoback, a professor at the University of Nebraska 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:43.160 A Kearney. They used these pitfall traps, large buckets buried 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.520 in the ground, and it contained feces from a bunch 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.480 of different species or a dead rotting rat in the 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:55.040 bottom carrion, or the remains of dead animals can also 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.400 serve as a food source for dung beetles, as we 0:12:57.400 --> 0:12:59.839 had said before, So the researchers wanted to compare this 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.440 to the dung samples, and two summers of work in 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.400 two thousand and ten two thousand eleven, the team captured 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.760 more than nine thousand dung beetles of fifteen different species, 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:15.840 and of the dung samples, human and chimpanzee feces, both 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:21.360 omnivores here attracted the most dung beetles. The dead rat 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:26.160 came in next, followed by pig droppings uh, then poop 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:31.000 from the carnivorous species, which included uh lion and tiger dung, 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:36.240 and then dead last herbivores, which again brings us back 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.840 to the Australian UH example, where we had all this 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:42.800 herbivore poop just setting around and the dungees were not 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.400 the right dung beetles to eat it. And in essence, 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.439 I guess you could say that some of these beetles 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.480 are playing with their poop, but really this is a 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.319 matter of survival. It just looks like playing because they're 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.120 going to do one of three things with these balls 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.680 of poop. They're gonna roll it, They're gonna roll it 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.839 into a tunnel, or they're going to dwell within it. Okay, 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:05.960 so we have the rollers, the tunnelers, and the dwellers. 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.360 The rollers are out there rolling this ball of of 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.400 excrement just across the across the ground, and those are 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.319 the ones that we often see and these compelling nature videos. 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.640 The tunnelers are taking that ball of poop and they're 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.760 going underground with it, and then the dwellers are dwelling 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.000 within the poop mount Yeah, they're saying, why not. I mean, 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.000 this is a food source. I can live inside of 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:30.320 it nice and cool. Yeah, so we have all these 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.560 are dung beetles, but they found sort of different levels 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.440 of exploitation of this resource, the resource being poop. Yeah, 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.360 and again we should mention to like, not only is 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.680 this a food source for them, but they can also 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.200 make a nest of it to transfer their eggs too. 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:49.240 So in this other sense though, they are using these 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.400 dung balls to cool off with, and um, it seems 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.360 kind of oddit for but now consider you know, the 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:00.800 species that are hanging out in substit or in Africa 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.880 and the desert where that that ground can get up 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.880 to sixty degrees celsius and get really really hot, and 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:12.200 there's lots of dung beetles competing for this dung and 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.520 they've got rolled as fast as they can, and yet 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.239 they have some really clever ways of trying to cool themselves. 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:21.920 So so how did they cool themselves off in this 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:24.440 this hot environment with something that you just don't You 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.880 don't think of poop is having any cooling elements. If anything, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.360 you think of it as being steaming and hot well 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.400 researchers Yoki and Smolka at All they studied how they 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.320 cooled themselves off, and they detailed it in the paper. 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.600 Dung beetles use their dung balls as a mobile thermal refuge. 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:43.960 And this is This is from the beginning of the paper, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.760 and I just love it. It says quote. Using infrared 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.480 thermography and behavioral experiments, we show here that dung beetles 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.080 use their dung balls as a mobile thermal refuge onto 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.680 which they climbed to cool down while rolling across hot soil. 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.000 We further demonstrate that the hoist ball functions not only 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.720 as a portable platform, but also as a heat sink, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.480 which effectively cools the beetle as it rolls or climbs 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.560 onto it. I'm not gonna get I'm not gonna get 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.640 deep into this study here, but I do want to 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.600 tell you that if you look into the study, you 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.240 will see where they have slipped these little socks onto 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.840 their feet and their hind legs um as they are 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.160 rolling the balls. Because they've done various things to try 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:28.480 to determine how much heat is uh entering the surface 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.800 of their feet and how they're cooling themselves off. But essentially, 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.760 as they're pressing onto that ball, which is a lot 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.000 cooler than the soil than they're cooling off from it, 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.520 they're they're also doing this what looks to be a 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.240 dance on top of the ball. An indeed, to the uninformed, 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.200 I it definitely looks like they're just stopping getting on 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.440 topping the ball and dancing around. But but really you 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:54.720 could you you should think a bit more in terms 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.040 of like a sailor climbing up the rigging of a 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.640 ship to see what's on the horizon, because that, as 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:02.680 it turns out, is key to the whole thing, because 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.720 when when did they actually climb a top and do 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.520 their dance. They do it when they're when their first 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.760 leaving the pile of poop, the main depositive poop. They 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.440 do it when they encounter an obstacle. So, in other words, 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:15.960 they're doing it when they need to see what the 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.200 lay of the land is, where are they taking this ball, 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.919 what is their their ultimate goal with it? And they 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.719 are possibly doing it to cool themselves because they found 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.399 that um that it usually happens at the hottest point 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.159 during the midday heat, so they see more incidences of 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.480 them getting up on the ball and doing this little jig. 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:35.720 And yeah, some of it though, is like a little 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.320 lookout to see, like, who are my competitors here? He's 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.000 gaining on me um. But any little advantage that they 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.119 can get like that they cool themselves off for the 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.360 briefest of moments helps them when they are making this 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.399 trek across the soil. And by the way, this is 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:54.280 a straight line that they are rolling these balls into 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:56.919 and along the way they're often having to deal with 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:01.520 rival dung beetles fighting them for their their their precious ball, 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:03.840 which is another thing just to keep in mind about 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.159 their their journey. Yeah, and and again they've got to 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.680 stay on that street path because it turns out this 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:15.520 is very intentional to have this straight path and they 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:20.480 may actually be using the milky way to orient themselves. 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.960 And this experiment is pretty adorable. Yeah. This one was 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.520 published in two thirteen in Current Biology, and it actually 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:33.600 earned a two thirteen Ignoble Prize. Which doesn't mean that 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.520 it's again we've talked about the Nobel Prizes before. It 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.439 doesn't mean that it's necessarily um useless science or that 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:42.600 it's uh, you know, completely silly, But maybe it just 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.639 has a silly element to it, such as dung beetles 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.600 wearing hats. Earlier they were wearing socks in a different experiment. 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.600 This time they're wearing hats. Because how are you going 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.920 to test Uh their navigational skills are they? Are they 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.040 depending upon the night sky for their movements or the 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.440 orientation of the milky way? Uh? You have to put 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:02.439 a little hat on there, a little little visor to 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.440 keep them from looking up. Indeed, so what did they do. 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.920 They set up an outdoor circular arena full of sand, 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:10.720 and they put the dung beetles in the middle with 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.280 their ball of dung, and they looked at the path 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.400 they took to get to the edge of their arena. Now, 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.480 half of those dung beetles could see the starry night 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.160 no moon, by the way, and the other half had 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.040 those little hats on that you just described. Now, the 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.879 hats only covered the dorsal eyes, the ones on the 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.440 top of their heads, and the ventral eyes were uncovered, 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.320 so they could still see that. So, of course, those 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.400 who are be hatted had a hard time navigating. They 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.600 didn't have the stars to help them navigate. And they 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.080 tested this again by placing the beetles in a planetarium, 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.959 inside an actual planetarium. It's an actual planetarium. Is brilliant, right, 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.720 because they can manipulate um the planetarium. They can make 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.000 it completely dark, they can just have a full moon, 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.000 no moon, or the milky way. And they found that 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.119 the beatles could vigate with the stars or just with 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.320 a milky way, which is again a diffuse band of 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.800 light surrounding a density of stars. And it's not just 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.200 starlight that is important to them. In two thousand three, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.800 researchers found that one species of dung beetle, the African 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:21.600 Scarabbas zambanius, navigates by using polarization patterns in moonlight. And 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.119 this was actually the first proof that any animal can 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:28.760 use polarized moonlight for orientation. Now you had mentioned the 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.919 competition is really fierce, and I just wanted to mention 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.399 that according to dung beetle expert John Freehand quote, the 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.719 behavior of the beatles was much misunderstood until the pioneering 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.600 studies of John Henri Fabre. For example, Fabre corrected the 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.760 myth that a dung beetle would seek aid from dung 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.960 beetles when confronted by obstacles. This is what was got 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.400 it because they probably probably observed like three or four 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.520 dung beetles pushing on a single ball of dung. Yeah. There, 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.560 of course, no one's trying to help anybody and that scenario, 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.600 they're just all fighting for the resources exactly, and uh, 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:09.800 Freehance says by painstaking observations and experiments, Fabruree found but 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.320 this seeming helpers were in fact robbers awaiting an opportunity 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.840 to steal the rollers food source. Now think about this 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.080 next statistic. I'm talking about at one point five kilogram 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.840 or a three point three pound load of elephant dung 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:33.120 that gets decimated by sixteen thousand dung beetles in two hours. 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.040 And this is from Dr John Capanier in his book, 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:44.000 who was describing how very efficiently these beetles will bury, eat, 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.960 or just roll away all the dung and just how 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:49.800 many competitors there are for it. Yeah, that's an incredible 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.919 stat and it really does underline their important role as 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.960 a recycler in the environment, especially when you have mega 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:00.240 fauna going around just completely unloading uh you know, over 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.040 the place. Indeed, so what does this mean. It means 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.440 that when it comes to uh, I don't know what 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:09.200 would you say, like, uh, to get in that ball, 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.360 to to obtaining the prize, you're going to have to 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.280 engage in a little bit of combat. Oh yeah, you 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:17.800 know that. What keeps coming to mind for me when 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.359 we keep talking about this, I keep thinking about mad Max, 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:25.080 particularly the road wire, where the commodity that everyone's arrestient 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.359 is gasoline, and so everyone's after the gasoline and all 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:31.240