Dung beetles are a lifestyle, not one evolutionary clan
Beetles that eat feces span several scarab lineages rather than a single ancestor. Most “true” dung specialists sit in Scarabaeinae, with Aphodiinae and earth-boring Geotrupidae sharing the habit. Egyptians cast the roller as Khepri pushing the sun.
Because dung feeding evolved more than once, behavior varies: some roll balls, others tunnel under pats, others simply live in the dung. Scarabaeoidea holds many non-dung scarabs too, so diet—not family membership alone—makes the folk category. The true dung beetles of Scarabaeinae alone number more than 5,000 species, while the small dung beetles of Aphodiinae include members that ignore dung altogether.
They occupy deserts, grasslands, savannas, farms and forests on every continent but Antarctica, though they avoid extreme cold and drought. Omnivore dung is the favourite, but many also eat fungi and rotting leaves or fruit, and a few break the mould entirely. Three Neotropical Deltochilum species hunt millipedes, two Brazilian Canthon species prey on winged leafcutter ants including queens, and Iberia's Thorectes lusitanicus eats acorns.
Their habits were a mystery until Jean Henri Fabre's work in the late nineteenth century. He debunked the tale that a stuck roller summons helpers: the apparent assistants were waiting to steal its ball. In 1991 Ilkka Cambefort and Yves Hanski sorted the beetles into rollers, tunnelers and dwellers. Among rollers, a male usually pushes the ball while the female rides along or follows; once they find soft soil they bury it and mate underground. The female then lays eggs inside a brood ball, stocking each larva's food in advance, and some species stay to guard the young through their complete metamorphosis.
Source: Dung beetle
