What Is a Dung Beetle and Why Are They So Important?

Dung beetles are scarab beetles that feed on and bury animal feces, and their ecological importance is difficult to overstate. By breaking down and redistributing waste across grasslands, forests, and rangelands worldwide, they improve soil structure, help plants grow, suppress livestock parasites, and even reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cattle farming. There are thousands of species, spread across every continent except Antarctica, and they have been performing these services for tens of millions of years. The more researchers study them, the more functions they discover.

What Dung Beetles Are and How They Handle Dung

Dung beetles belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, and most species discussed in ecological research fall within the subfamily Scarabaeinae of the family Scarabaeidae. They range in size from a few millimeters to several centimeters, and they share a common lifestyle built around exploiting animal dung as a food source and a place to raise offspring. Beyond that shared habit, though, species vary enormously in how they go about the work.

Researchers generally sort dung beetles into three broad behavioral categories based on how they manipulate dung. Rollers carve out a portion of a dung pat, shape it into a ball, and roll it away from the source before burying it at a distance. Tunnelers dig directly beneath or beside the pat and pull dung underground into chambers. Dwellers skip the digging entirely and complete their life cycle inside the pat itself. A more detailed classification system identifies seven functional groups based on body size, speed of dung removal, and competitive dominance. Large ball rollers and fast-burying tunnelers tend to be the most aggressive competitors, rapidly clearing dung from the surface, while smaller dwellers and slow tunnelers work over days or weeks.

1Ecological Entomology. A functional classification for analysis of the structure of dung beetle assemblages

This diversity of strategies matters because it means dung beetle communities process waste at multiple speeds and depths simultaneously. A field experiment classifying beetles into dwellers, large tunnelers, and small tunnelers found that each group contributed differently to ecosystem functions like dung removal and soil aeration.

2PubMed. Linking functional group richness and ecosystem functions of dung beetles: an experimental quantification

What They Actually Eat

You might assume dung beetles simply swallow feces, but their feeding is more selective than that. Beetles filter out the coarse fiber particles in dung and focus on ingesting microbial biomass and fine debris with much smaller particle sizes. In some species, the mandibles squeeze excess fluid from this material before it is swallowed.

3Ecological Entomology. Herbivore dung as food for dung beetles: elementary coprology for entomologists

Not every dung beetle sticks to a pure dung diet, either. Some species feed on carrion, fungi, or decaying fruit. A few have made more dramatic dietary leaps. One species in the Peruvian rainforest, Deltochilum valgum, is an obligate predator that kills and eats millipedes rather than feeding on dung at all. Morphologically it looks very similar to its dung-feeding relatives, suggesting a rapid behavioral shift from coprophagy to predation.

4PubMed Central. From coprophagy to predation: a dung beetle that kills millipedes

Other species have been documented feeding on seeds, dead millipedes, and even animal fur. In Brazil’s Caatinga dry forest, researchers found dung beetles from several genera removing seeds, visiting dead millipedes, and associating with goat hairballs.

5Journal of Arid Environments. Cues of uncommon food habits within dung beetles: Notes from a seasonally dry tropical forest in South America

How They Find Dung and Navigate Away From It

Dung beetles locate fresh dung primarily through smell. Their antennae are studded with specialized sensory structures, including hair-like sensilla and club-shaped sensilla, that detect volatile organic compounds wafting from dung. Compounds like skatole, indole, phenol, butyric acid, and p-cresol are among the key attractants, and different beetle species respond to different subsets of these odors depending on their feeding preferences.

6PubMed Central. Characterisation of Antennal Sensilla and Electroantennography Responses of the Dung Beetles Bubas bison, Onitis aygulus and Geotrupes spiniger (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea) to Dung Volatile Organic Compounds

Field experiments have confirmed that synthetic versions of these compounds work as effective lures. Skatole, indole, and phenol function as primary attractants, while other volatiles like dimethyl sulfide and eucalyptol modify or enhance the attraction.

7Scientific Reports. Field evaluation of electrophysiologically-active dung volatiles as chemical lures for trapping of dung beetles

Once a roller beetle has secured a ball, its priority shifts from finding dung to escaping with it. Competition at the dung pat is fierce, and rolling in a straight line away from the source is the fastest escape route. This is where one of the most celebrated discoveries in insect behavior comes in: dung beetles navigate using the Milky Way. In a landmark study, researchers showed that ball-rolling beetles maintained straight paths under a starlit sky but lost their way under overcast conditions. Inside a planetarium, beetles performed equally well whether the full sky or only the band of the Milky Way was projected. This was the first proven use of the Milky Way for orientation in any animal.

8PubMed. Dung beetles use the Milky Way for orientation

Follow-up research has extended this finding, showing that even species adapted to dark forest habitats and partly underground life use celestial cues to optimize their movement, suggesting the behavior is an ancestral mechanism in insects rather than a quirk of open-habitat species.

9BMC Environmental Science. Do dung beetles use the Milky Way to optimise their movement?

The dung ball itself serves another unexpected function: climate control. On hot sand, beetles periodically climb on top of their ball to cool their feet. Infrared imaging has shown that the moist ball acts as a heat sink, drawing warmth away from the beetle’s body. It is essentially a mobile air-conditioning unit.

10PubMed. Dung beetles use their dung ball as a mobile thermal refuge

Underground Engineers of Soil Health

When tunneling beetles drag dung below the surface, they do not just remove waste from sight. They physically reshape the soil. Their burrows create macropores that allow water to penetrate deeper and faster. One study measured a 37-fold increase in water infiltration through soil where dung beetles had created vertical tunnels, compared with undisturbed topsoil nearby. The tunneling also decreased soil bulk density, making the ground less compacted.

11Pedobiologia. Bioturbation by dung beetles and termites. Do they similarly impact soil and hydraulic properties?

Controlled experiments with mesocosms have confirmed these effects across settings. After just five days with beetles present, water had infiltrated to a greater depth than in beetle-free controls. Steady-state infiltration rates climbed significantly after about ten days of beetle activity.

12Ecological Entomology. Dung beetles as hydrological engineers: effects of tunnelling on soil infiltration

The upshot is that dung beetles improve water infiltration, increase porosity, and reduce surface runoff.

13Applied Soil Ecology. Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) can improve soil hydrological properties In grazing landscapes prone to erosion, this is a substantial benefit. The nutrients buried with the dung also become available to plant roots at depth rather than sitting on the surface where they wash away or volatilize into the atmosphere.

Making Pastures More Productive

All that buried dung translates into measurable gains in plant growth. A meta-analysis pooling results from 24 studies found that dung beetle activity increased plant growth by roughly 17% on average. The effect scaled with beetle numbers: when beetle counts rose from about 10 to 100 per experimental unit, the estimated boost in plant growth roughly quadrupled, climbing from around 19% to about 75%.

14PubMed Central. Dung beetles increase plant growth: a meta-analysis

These are not just laboratory curiosities. For ranchers, healthier pasture growth means more forage per hectare, which directly affects how many animals a given piece of land can support.

Suppressing Livestock Parasites

Dung pats left sitting on pasture are breeding grounds for gastrointestinal parasites whose larvae crawl onto nearby grass and get eaten by grazing cattle and sheep. By breaking apart and burying pats, dung beetles disrupt that life cycle. In a field study in temperate pastures, significantly fewer infective-stage parasite larvae were recovered from the grass surrounding beetle-colonized pats compared to pats that beetles had not reached, though heavy rainfall could override the effect.

15Journal of Applied Ecology. Dung beetles reduce livestock gastrointestinal parasite availability on pasture

This has real veterinary and economic implications. Parasite control in livestock is expensive and relies heavily on antiparasitic drugs, some of which, ironically, harm the very beetles that provide natural suppression. More on that shortly.

Cutting Methane and Other Greenhouse Gases

Cattle dung decomposes anaerobically on the surface, releasing methane and nitrous oxide. Dung beetles aerate pats by tunneling through them and breaking them apart, shifting decomposition toward aerobic pathways that produce less methane. One study found that beetle activity reduced methane emissions from individual dung pats by about 14.5% and nitrous oxide by about 2%, yielding an overall 7% reduction in warming-equivalent emissions over the roughly two-month life of a pat.

16Scientific Reports. The role of dung beetles in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from cattle farming

A separate experiment using introduced beetle species found an even more dramatic result: cumulative methane flux was 85% lower in beetle-colonized pats compared to controls. Control pats showed distinct methane peaks at about day 6 and day 16, while beetle-colonized pats stayed near zero throughout the experiment.

17Ecological Entomology. Introduced dung beetles suppress methane emissions from cattle dung and alter the temporal dynamics of greenhouse gas flux

The magnitude of the reduction varies by beetle species and community composition. Some species reduce overall carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide flux as well, though the effects depend on the particular assemblage present.

18PLoS ONE. Greenhouse gas emissions from dung pats vary with dung beetle species and with assemblage composition

What Dung Beetles Are Worth in Dollars and Pounds

Researchers have tried to put a price tag on these services. In the U.K., one estimate suggested that dung beetles save the cattle industry roughly £367 million per year through dung removal, soil conditioning, and pest suppression, with organic farms seeing slightly higher per-cow benefits than conventional operations.

19Ecological Entomology. The application of an ecosystem services framework to estimate the economic value of dung beetles to the U.K. cattle industry

In Florida, economists estimated the additional grazing capacity created by beetle-driven dung removal could translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra revenue per year for the state’s ranchers, with exact figures depending on beetle abundance.

20Basic and Applied Ecology. Economic value of dung removal by dung beetles in US sub-tropical pastures

Seed Dispersal in Tropical Forests

In forests, dung beetles perform a less obvious service: they move seeds. Many tropical plants depend on animals that eat their fruit and deposit the seeds in dung. Without further dispersal, those seeds sit clumped together beneath the parent tree, competing with each other and vulnerable to seed predators. Dung beetles that bury or roll dung scatter those seeds away from the pile, reducing clumping. In one experiment, about 97–98% of intact seeds were moved at least 2 cm horizontally by beetle activity, with maximum distances around 24–25 cm.

21PubMed Central. Horizontal seed dispersal by dung beetles reduced seed and seedling clumping, but did not increase short-term seedling establishment

Larger-bodied beetle species appear especially important for burying bigger seeds. A study across tropical forest sites found that dung beetle biomass had a stronger positive effect on the burial of large seeds than small ones, meaning that human-driven declines in large-bodied beetles could disproportionately harm large-seeded plant species.

22PubMed Central. The value of trophic interactions for ecosystem function: dung beetle communities influence seed burial and seedling recruitment in tropical forests

Horns and the Competition to Reproduce

Many dung beetle species display striking sexual dimorphism. Males often sport elaborate horns used in combat over tunnels and access to females. Within a single species, males can come in two distinct forms: large-horned “majors” that fight head-to-head, and smaller-horned “minors” that tend to sneak past competitors. The gene doublesex drives both the difference between male and female body plans and the nutrition-dependent variation in horn size among males.

23Integrative Organismal Biology. Testing for Differences in Metabolism Among Females and Dimorphic Males of Four Dung Beetle Species (Coloeoptera: Scarabaeinae)

In populations of the tropical species Onthophagus babirussa, males are generally larger than females, and males show significant investment in horns as weapons for competition. Interestingly, sexual size dimorphism was greater in populations with smaller average body size, suggesting that the pressure to invest in weaponry varies with local conditions.

24PubMed Central. Sexual size dimorphism and male reproductive traits vary across populations of a tropical rainforest dung beetle species (Onthophagus babirussa)

An Ancient Lineage With a Cultural Legacy

How far back dung beetle ancestry reaches is a contested question. Molecular evidence suggests that the initial evolution of dung-feeding behavior in the Scarabaeinae was associated with dinosaurs, not mammals, representing a strong mismatch between the inferred divergence times of the two groups.

25PLOS ONE. If Dung Beetles (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) Arose in Association with Dinosaurs, Did They Also Suffer a Mass Co-Extinction at the K-Pg Boundary?

Other researchers argue that the validated fossil record for scarabaeine beetles only extends into the Cenozoic, the era of modern mammals, and that a Cretaceous origin linked to dinosaur dung remains unsupported by direct fossil evidence. Trace fossils of tunnels in dinosaur coprolites hint that some insects were exploiting dinosaur dung, but whether those insects were the direct ancestors of today’s dung beetles is still debated.

26Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. Biogeographical and co-evolutionary origins of scarabaeine dung beetles: Mesozoic vicariance versus Cenozoic dispersal and dinosaur versus mammal dung

Regardless of the precise timeline, dung beetles have been culturally important for millennia. The ancient Egyptians revered the sacred scarab, Scarabaeus sacer, seeing in its ball-rolling behavior a symbol of the sun’s daily journey across the sky. Scarab imagery was ubiquitous in Egyptian religion, appearing in tomb hieroglyphics, amulets, commemoratives, and good-luck charms. Hand-carved scarabs were buried with the dead.

27Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America. Insects as Sacred Symbols in Ancient Egypt

What Threatens Dung Beetles

For insects that provide so many services, dung beetles face surprisingly little protection. Two major threats stand out: antiparasitic drugs used in livestock, and habitat destruction.

Ivermectin, one of the most widely used dewormers in cattle, passes through the animal and persists in dung at concentrations that are toxic to beetles. In one experiment, dung treated at concentrations between 250 and 500 parts per billion produced emergence rates of only about 5–20% in beetle offspring when all dung pats were treated. When researchers simulated targeted treatment, leaving some pats ivermectin-free, emergence rates recovered to 68–88%.

28PubMed. Experimental evidence that dung beetles benefit from reduced ivermectin in targeted treatment of livestock parasites

A field study in eastern Ethiopia confirmed these effects under real-world conditions, finding that ivermectin residues in cattle dung negatively affected dung beetle populations, plant germination, and soil fertility in the initial weeks after treatment.

29PubMed Central. Experimental study on the effect of Ivermectin on cattle dung faunas in Eastern Ethiopia

Deforestation is the other major pressure. A global meta-analysis of 48 studies found lower dung beetle diversity and reduced ecological function in forests that had been degraded or cleared, with Neotropical and Southeast Asian regions especially vulnerable given their high rates of primary-forest loss.

30Journal of Applied Ecology. Primary forest loss and degradation reduces biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: A global meta‐analysis using dung beetles as an indicator taxon

Even within specific ecosystems, disturbance takes a toll. In Amazonian white-sand forests, undisturbed areas held higher beetle diversity, abundance, and biomass than areas disturbed by mining. Most species could not cope with the habitat changes, reinforcing the value of dung beetles as indicator species for environmental monitoring.

31Insect Conservation and Diversity. Ecological communities in white‐sand Amazonian rainforests are sensitive to deforestation—A dung beetle case

Bringing Beetles Where They Are Needed

In some parts of the world, dung beetles are absent or insufficiently diverse because the local species did not evolve alongside the livestock now grazing there. Australia is the most famous example. The continent’s native beetles evolved with marsupial dung, which is dry and pellet-shaped, and they struggled to process the wet, flat pats left by introduced cattle. Starting in 1964, Australia’s CSIRO ran a deliberate importation program that ultimately established 23 exotic dung beetle species across the country. The initial goal was reducing populations of bush flies and buffalo flies, which breed in cattle dung, but the imported beetles also delivered the soil-health and pasture benefits described earlier.

32Environmental Entomology. A Review of Dung Beetle Introductions in the Antipodes and North America: Status, Opportunities, and Challenges

Similar introduction efforts have taken place in North America and New Zealand, though results have varied. The concept is straightforward: if the beetles are not there naturally, import species suited to local dung types and climate, and let them work. Getting it right, however, involves years of quarantine screening, host-range testing, and post-release monitoring to make sure the introduced species fills the intended niche without displacing native fauna. It is among the more successful examples of biological control through insect introduction, but it remains an active area of research with plenty of open questions about which species to introduce, where, and whether native beetle communities can recover when pressures like ivermectin use and habitat loss are reduced.