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The vast plains of Africa, which are home to many fairly large herbivores, are also home to the scarab beetle . Probably Africa, and the whole planet, has not yet been mired in huge piles of dung thanks to dung beetles, among which scarab beetles have the most honorable place.
Origin of the species and description
Photo: Scarab beetle
Entomologists classify the scarab beetle as belonging to the genus Scarabaeidae, the class Insectae, the order Coleoptera, and the family Lamelidae. This family is characterized by a special shape of the mustache, which can periodically open in the form of a fan consisting of thin movable plates.
Video: Scarab beetle
Currently, science knows more than a hundred representatives of this genus, which usually live in dry steppes, deserts, semi-deserts, and savannas. Most species of scarabs can only be found in the tropical zone of the African continent. The region called the Palaearctic, spanning northern Africa, Europe and northern Asia, is home to approximately 20 species.
The body length of scarab beetles can vary between 9-40 mm. Most of them have a matte black color of the chitinous layer, which becomes more shiny as they mature. Sometimes you can find insects with chitin of a silver-metallic color, but this is very rare. Males differ from females not in color and size, but in their hind legs, which are covered on the inside with golden fringe.
All scarab beetles are very characterized by vegetation on the legs and abdomen, as well as the presence of four teeth on the front pair of legs, which are involved in digging and forming balls of dung.
Sacred Scarab: Gets under your skin?
Our today's hero is familiar to many from the film "The Mummy". This beetle was remembered by viewers for its creepy ability to crawl under the skin and devour a person from the inside. Previously, this bug was equated with a deity, but even now little people tremble with horror at the sight of this creature. Is this black lord of the sands so terrible? Let's find out! Refrain from eating, dear friends, because today our story will be about the great and terrible sacred scarabs
.
Even an insect whose life is, for all intents and purposes, feces can succeed.
From birth, the bukaha is dressed in armor made of a matte black exoskeleton. But, despite the status of a god and external pathos, this creature can only do two things: dig and roll
.
The limbs of an insect are ideally designed for the above functions. Even the beetle's head is spade-shaped with serrations, so that it can immerse itself in its favorite work - digging into poop and eating it. The scarab does not need wings for flight.
With them he obtains moisture from the fog. The beetle stands against the wind and spreads its wings, collecting particles of water with them. The scarab lives throughout the Mediterranean, including in the country of sands and pyramids. At a time when this land was called Great Egypt
, people really appreciated our hero.
They also seemed to value substances very much. Because to believe that a gothic kalovoz, in addition to dung, also brings happiness
, can only be done by smoking hard.
Modern Egyptians do not value the beetle at all. But scientists continue to call the scarab sacred. Here's some happiness...
Six-legged coprophiles hang out on the scattered dung of cattle. Due to the fact that beetles constantly dig into other people's feces, their exoskeleton becomes shiny. Insects need poop for two things: to eat,
and to
rivet the kids
.
Therefore, beetles often start real battles over ready-made rounds. Is there any manure?
What if I find it? Here you are laughing, and here there is a drama at the level of Spielberg. To prevent rivals from coveting the fruit of other people's efforts, scarabs roll the coveted ball far away and bury themselves with it. Beetles leave their home only when there is absolutely nothing to eat. Well, or when the so-called basic instinct kicks in.
Don't leave the room, don't make a mistake...
Reproduction in beeches is difficult. rolls the balls first
to the female you like, and in the most literal sense.
If the tackle is successful, then the next stage of the relationship is the search for elite varieties of manure
(all the best for children).
Looking for a home for my son's basket.
The height of beetle romance comes when lovers work together to make a ball of dung.
for future children.
I can imagine what the Love is gum inscriptions would look like if scarabs had them. Only after caring parents have provided the children with living space does the couple begin the long-awaited intercourse. After coitus, the male leaves immediately. Mommy follows him, but only after she has whittled her eggs into that same ball of dung. “Lullabies” for scarab larvae can be several times larger than the parents themselves.
So, where is the information about that terrible horror that everyone saw in the movie “The Mummy”? Well, we hasten to assure you that the episode with the scarabs has nothing to do with reality. These bugs don't get under your skin
, so you can breathe out.
Moreover, beetles don’t even like our excrement. As we have already said, the zhuchara feeds exclusively on manure. So no matter how a person stinks, the scarab is not interested in him. Dig mummies for your health!
Appearance and features
Photo: What a scarab beetle looks like
The body of the scarab beetle has the appearance of a wide, slightly convex oval, completely covered with an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is a very hard and durable chitinous cover, usually acting as so-called armor that protects the beetle’s body from injuries associated with its type of activity. The head of the scarab beetle is short and wide with six teeth at the front.
The pronotum of the insect is also wide and short, flat, quite simple in shape, has a granular structure and a large number of small lateral teeth. The insect's hard chitinous elytra are more than twice as long as the pronotum, have six longitudinal shallow grooves, and the same uneven granular structure.
The posterior section of the abdomen is bordered by small teeth and covered with sparse vegetation in the form of dark hairs. The same hairs are present on all three pairs of legs. The front legs serve the beetles for digging soil and manure. Compared to other paws, they look coarser, more powerful, massive and are equipped with four outer teeth, some of which have many very small teeth at their base. The middle and hind legs appear longer, thinner, curved and help the insects form balls of dung and also carry them to their destination.
Interesting fact: Dung balls formed by scarab beetles can be tens of times larger than the size of insects.
Where does the scarab beetle live?
Photo: Scarab beetle in Egypt
It is traditionally believed that scarab beetles live in Egypt, where they have long been revered and almost worshiped, but the habitat of the insects is much wider. The scarab is found almost throughout Africa, in Europe (western and southern parts of the continent, southern Russia, Dagestan, Georgia, France, Greece, Turkey), in Asia and even on the Crimean Peninsula.
In general, it turns out that scarab beetles prefer a warm or hot climate with short and mild winters, which is typical for the above regions, as well as the coasts of the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Beetles prefer to live on sandy soils in savannas, dry steppes, deserts and semi-deserts, while they try to avoid saline areas.
It is interesting that beetles live on the Crimean peninsula, but probably, due to the salinity of large areas of the region, they are much smaller in size than their Egyptian relatives.
Interesting fact: More than 20 years ago, entomologists tried to detect traces of scarabs in Australia, but these attempts were unsuccessful. Apparently on this continent Mother Nature never had a need for orderlies. And no wonder, Australia has always been famous not for the abundance of wildlife, but for its unusualness, especially since its entire central part is a dry desert sparsely populated by animals.
Now you know where the scarab beetle is found. Let's see what he eats.
What does the scarab beetle eat?
Photo: Scarab beetle in nature
Scarab beetles feed on fresh mammalian dung, which is why they have fully earned the status of natural orderlies or recyclers. As a result of observations, it was noticed that 3-4 thousand beetles can fly to one small pile of manure. The manure should be fresh, because this makes it easier to form balls from it. Beetles make dung balls in a rather interesting way: with the help of teeth on the head and front legs, which rake like a shovel. When forming a ball, a small piece of round-shaped manure is taken as a basis. Having settled on top of this piece, the beetle often turns in different directions, separates the manure surrounding it with the jagged edge of its head, and at the same time, its front paws pick up this manure, bring it to the ball and press it into it from different sides until it acquires the desired shape and size .
Insects hide the formed balls in shaded nooks and, in search of a suitable place, are able to roll them several tens of meters, and the further the beetle moves away from the heap, the faster it needs to roll its prey. If the scarab suddenly becomes distracted, even for a short time, the ball can be brazenly taken away by its more nimble relatives. It often happens that a fierce fight takes place over dung balls, and there are always more contenders for them than there are owners.
Having found a suitable place, the beetle digs a fairly deep hole under the ball, rolls it there, buries it and lives next to its prey until it completely eats it. As a rule, this takes a couple of weeks, or even more. When the food runs out, the beetle goes back in search of food and everything starts all over again.
Interesting fact: It has been scientifically proven that the carnivorous species of scarab beetles does not exist in nature.
Features of character and lifestyle
Photo: Large scarab beetle
The scarab beetle is considered the strongest and hardest working insect, capable of moving 90 times its own weight. He has a unique natural skill - he creates an almost regular geometric figure - a sphere - from manure. You can see the scarab in its habitat from mid-March to October. The beetles are active during the day, and at night, if it is not too warm, they burrow into the ground. When it gets too hot during the day, insects begin to become nocturnal.
Beetles fly very well, so when they gather in large flocks, they wander around the surrounding area following herds of large herbivores. Scarabs can smell the smell of fresh manure from several kilometers away. The scarab was nicknamed the orderly of sandy soil for a reason, because almost its entire life is connected with manure. Several thousand beetles are able to process a pile of animal waste in no more than an hour, before it has time to dry out.
The dung balls are rolled by the beetles at a distance of several tens of meters from the heap into a shaded place, where they are then buried in the ground and eaten within a couple of weeks. Quite often, fierce fights arise between beetles over ready-made dung balls. As the balls roll, “family” pairs are formed. In temperate climates, where winters are cold, scarab beetles do not hibernate, but wait out the frosts, making reserves in advance, hiding in deep burrows and remaining active.
Scarab and man
The ancient Egyptians revered the scarab beetle. Until now, he is considered a protector from bad energy, all sorts of troubles, and even mortal dangers. The walls of the house, figurines, amulets decorated with the image of a scarab beetle not only protect, but also bring good luck, success in work and any endeavors. Scarab figurines were used for various rituals and ceremonies, such as treating women for infertility, for example.
People especially value jewelry and a talisman in the form of a scarab beetle.
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Social structure and reproduction
Photo: Egyptian scarab beetle
As such, there is no mating season among scarabs. The beetles mate and lay eggs as long as they are active. Moreover, they find a couple for themselves while working. Scarab beetles live up to about 2 years. Young insects prepare dung balls for their food. Somewhere at 3-4 months of life, males unite with females into “families” and begin to work together, preparing food not only for themselves, but also for future offspring.
First, the insects dig holes up to 30 cm deep with a nesting chamber at the end, into which dung balls are rolled and where mating then takes place. The male, having fulfilled his duty, leaves the nest, and the female lays eggs (1-3 pieces) in dung balls, giving them a pear-shaped shape. After this, the female also leaves the nest, filling the entrance from above.
Interesting fact: One fertilized female during the active period can create up to a dozen nests, and therefore lay up to 30 eggs.
After 10-12 days, the eggs hatch into larvae, which immediately begin to actively eat the food prepared by their parents. After about a month of such a well-fed life, each larva turns into a pupa, which after a couple of weeks turns into a fully formed beetle. Scarabs, after transforming from pupae, remain inside dung balls until autumn, or even spring, until the rains finally soften them.
Scarab life cycle stages:
- egg;
- larva;
- chrysalis;
- adult beetle.
sacred scarab
The sacred scarab is one of the representatives of dung beetles (family Lamelidae), widespread in North Africa and the countries of Southern and Western Europe.
Scarabs are the real strongmen of the insect world: the balls of dung they roll often reach such a size that they become larger than the beetle itself. It is interesting that the front legs of the scarab seem to be created exclusively for sculpting and rolling balls: they are very strong, dexterous and are never used by the beetle for any other purpose.
What does it look like
The length of the sacred scarab (Scarabaeus sacer) reaches 25–37 mm. The tar-black body is covered with a durable chitinous cover - the exoskeleton (external skeleton). The color acquires a brilliant sheen as it matures. The inner edges of the male's hind legs are covered with golden-red fringe - this is the main difference between the male and female. The head has a serrated clypeus. The pronotum and elytra have a granular texture.
Lifestyle, nutrition and reproduction
The main activity is rolling balls of manure. A fierce fight can break out between several beetles over the finished ball. Most often, scarabs can be seen in the fields, where they gather around piles of dung of ungulates and make balls from it. Then the male and female roll the ball away from the dung heap and bury it in the ground. Most often, these balls serve as food for the beetles, but the female uses some of them to lay eggs.
The female digs a burrow 10–30 cm long, which ends in a nesting chamber. After mating, the male leaves the shelter, and the female makes 1–3 ovoids from dung, intended for laying eggs; after oviposition, she fills up the hole and begins building a new one. During the season she creates 10 such burrow-nests. Like many other insects, development occurs with metamorphosis - a sequential change of phases: egg, larva, pupa, imago. All these transformations take two months. The larva hatching from the egg feeds on manure, grows and turns into an adult beetle, which crawls to the surface of the earth next spring.
It feeds on horse droppings and also cattle droppings.
There are a wide variety of beetles that feed on animal droppings. Thousands of beetles quickly gather on a medium-sized elephant dung pile and begin processing it. After about an hour or two, there is practically nothing left from the pile.
Sacred scarabs roll a ball of dung
Why were scarabs revered by the ancient Egyptians?
The ancient Egyptians worshiped many gods. Each god was “responsible” for one or another natural phenomenon. The supreme deity Ra is the sun god, the creator of all things. The sun was pushed across the sky by Ra's assistant, the god Khepri. The Egyptians depicted this god with the head of a scarab, as they considered this beetle to be the earthly incarnation of Khepri.
The ancient Egyptians deified scarabs because they saw their rolling dung balls as a symbol of the movement of the Sun across the sky. They paid homage to the beetle and carved its images from precious stones.
Natural enemies of scarab beetles
Photo: What a scarab beetle looks like
Scarab beetles are quite large, easily visible from a height and somewhat slow-moving insects. In addition, they are so passionate about their activities that they do not notice anything around them except manure and their fellow creatures. For this reason, insects are easy to spot, catch and eat by birds of prey, as well as some mammals. The beetle, wherever it lives, is quite successfully hunted by crows, magpies, jackdaws, moles, foxes, and hedgehogs.
However, the tick is considered a more dangerous enemy than predators. A special feature of this mite is its ability to pierce the chitinous layer of a beetle with its sharp teeth, climb inside and eat it alive. One tick does not pose a great danger to a scarab, but when there are many of them, which happens quite often, the beetle gradually dies.
By the way, as a result of excavations in Egypt, chitinous scarab shells with characteristic holes were found, proving that ticks have been the worst enemies of scarabs for a very long time. Moreover, so many shells were found that it suggests the idea of periodic epidemics of ticks that once destroyed entire populations of beetles.
Why is this happening? Scientists do not yet have an exact answer on this matter, but it can be assumed that in this way nature is trying to regulate the numbers of a particular species.
Scarab beetle and Egypt
Why did the Egyptians worship the scarab as a deity? The fact is that they considered it symbolic that the beetles roll their balls from east to west, that is, in the same direction in which the Sun moves.
According to myths, the Sun comes from darkness and then rises during the day. The Scarab also follows the Solar route, resurrecting from a dung ball.
According to legend, Khepri was the god who knew the secrets of the Sun. He was depicted with the head of a scarab rolling the Sun across the sky.
Thus, the scarab beetle represented the birth of new life. The ancient Egyptians were confident that Khepri the scarab protected them not only during life on earth, but also in the other world.
They believed that even in human remains the soul is preserved. Immediately after a person dies, she rises into the sky and continues to live there.
It is for this reason that when the body was mummified, the heart was removed from it in advance, and a scarab figurine was placed in its place.
In addition, precious items with an image of a scarab holding a solar disk were placed on the chest of the deceased.
These beetles were painted on many things: on jewelry, boxes, talismans and other objects. The Egyptians believed that these insects could give people great strength and help people cope with their life's difficulties.
Scarab figures were often made from green stones, as it was believed that this color symbolizes rebirth. Skilled craftsmen wrote words about the sacrament of resurrection on jewelry.
Drawings with scarab beetles are found during archaeological excavations of tombs, as well as on ancient papyri. Some finds date back to 3-4 thousand years BC. e.
One of the most famous and revered scarab statues is located in the Karnak Temple, built near Luxor. Tattoos on the body were very popular in Egypt, since the Egyptians were confident that life in the other world was much more important than the earthly one.
So, a tattoo with a scarab represented something like an entrance to the afterlife.
In conclusion, it should be said that the ancient Egyptians took everyday things extremely seriously, resorting to animism (belief in the animate nature) and zoolatry (worship of animals).
Population and species status
Photo: Scarab beetle
According to entomologists, the Sacred Scarab is the only species of beetle, but not so long ago more than a hundred species of similar insects were identified and assigned to a separate family, Scarabs.
The most common of them:
- armeniacus Menetries;
- cicatricosus;
- variolosus Fabricius;
- winkleri Stolfa.
The above species of beetle are little studied, but basically they differ from each other only in size, shades of chitinous shell, and the division occurred depending on their habitat. People realized how useful scarab beetles are back in Ancient Egypt, when they noticed that black, inconspicuous insects diligently destroy manure and spoiled food. Thanks to their ability to cleanse the earth of waste products of animals and people, which is important in a very hot climate, black beetles began to be revered and elevated to a cult.
During the time of the pharaohs and later, in Ancient Egypt there was a cult of the scarab god Kheper, who is the deity of longevity and health. During excavations of the tombs of the pharaohs, huge quantities of Khepera figurines made of stone and metal, as well as gold medallions in the shape of a scarab beetle, were found. Scarab beetles are successfully used today as a natural “recycler” of manure.
Interesting fact: After the colonization of South America and Australia, where various livestock began to be raised in large numbers, local insects could no longer cope with simply huge amounts of manure. To solve the problem, it was decided to bring large quantities of these beetles there. The insects did not take root in Australia for long, but they completed the task.
