COME UNDUNG
How one of our most successful humanitarian efforts is becoming a foul problem for the planet
TO THE EXTENT that we think about them at all, people tend to regard dung beetles as entertainment, rolling, tumbling, even somersaulting over massive balls of elephant poop. But the 5,000 or so species at work on every continent except Antarctica are as important as pollinators.
Animals unload an estimated 100 billion tons of dung on Earth every day. Just one cow can drop 20 cowpats daily and quickly smother a landscape in manure. By bringing poop back to their underground nests and feeding it to their young, dung beetles not only clear pastureland and reopen it for
