Monday, December 19, 2022

Dung beetle heaven

At the end of November, during that wonderfully mild spell of late autumn weather, we found this large dung beetle Geotrupes stercorarius crossing a country lane in Teesdale. Ordinarily, it might have spent the winter in the pupal state underground but I suspect that the warm conditions might have hastened its development. Now it was probably looking for somewhere to dig a tunnel and hibernate, so we moved it to a place of safety - a field with horses, where it could burrow down under a pile of dung: dung beetle heaven


More on dung beetles, which I have most often found in spring, here 

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