Dung Beetles

[Edna]

When I lived in NE Montana, my fenced "yard" was an acre or so of mostly natural pasture, with Russian Crested wheatgrass planted in it. We didn't mow for the most part, grazed the horses in there sometimes, and the dogs were in the yard most of the time. When they pooped, there were these little dung beetles that started making use of their poos within minutes. The beetles couldn't really keep up with 7 dogs, but they did help with any poos I didn't get scooped.
Here in WY, my yard is in town. I have 3 dogs, no dung beetles. Hmm.
Can anyone tell me why I have no beetles here? I scoop every day and have never seen any evidence of insect interest in the poos.

 

[dmarcus]

Dung beetles are so cool, can't help with your question...

 

[Turtle Guru]

They are ineresting bettles, and I cant help you sorry because I dont have them where i live.

 

[AnthonyC]

I never even realized that we have them here in the U.S. I thought they were exclusive to Africa & they only ate Rhino/Elephant poo!

 

[Edna]

Here is an interesting little article about dung beetles:

http://www.cirrusimage.com/beetles_dung.htm

The ones in my yard would have been of the dwelling variety, meaning that they ate and lived in poo.

 

[dmmj]

Maybe the dung beetles wised up and realized that eating dung was disgusting and then became "pie" beetles.

 

[Angrycowgoesmoo]

Your dogs poo might be so smelly they died from sniffing it

 

[Baoh]

They just are not present in your specific current locale. I had liked reading about dung beetles ever since I was a very small child. The Egyptian mythological scarab connection was also of interest to me at that age. I would not mind some here.