What is Shikakuro?

The dung beetle, commonly known as the "dung beetle", is a black and fat beetle. In summer and autumn, people can often see pairs of dung beetles in fields or beside roads, busy rolling balls of dung.

The front of the dung beetle’s head has a row of hard horns, like round nails. It uses the “nails” on its head to gather the dung together, and then rubs it into a ball with its feet. Push and roll forward. The ball rolled bigger and bigger, and eventually it was larger than my body. They do not avoid steep slopes and dangerous ditches. Sometimes they push to the top of the slope and roll down together with the dung balls. If a dung beetle can't push it, the male and female will cooperate, one pulling in front and the other pushing back. They will never give up until the goal is achieved. Scientists call them "cleaners."

Why does the dung beetle push the dung ball so tirelessly? It turns out that dung is food for the dung beetles and also a food reserve for future children. During the day, they usually stay in the holes under the dung balls, where they lay eggs during the breeding period. The hatched larvae especially like to eat cow dung.

In our country, the feces beetle has become a notorious insect in the name of feces. But in Egypt, the dung beetle has a very good reputation and is regarded as a sacred beetle! It turns out that when the ancient Egyptians were irrigating their onion fields in the spring, they found the dung beetle busy rolling a ball. People said that the ball symbolized the earth, and that the dung beetle was inspired by the movement of the planet in the sky. It is a "spiritual creature" on earth that moves. No wonder some ancient Egyptian cultural relics—gold seals and jade seals—are shaped like shit beetles!

The feces beetle is looked down upon in China, but it was once famous in Australia. Australia is a country with developed animal husbandry, and there are pastures everywhere. Hundreds of millions of piles of cow manure are discharged every day, covering tens of thousands of acres of pasture. When the cow dung dries up, the covered pasture can no longer grow green grass. At the same time, cow dung can breed a large number of flies, spread diseases, and cause serious harm to humans and animals. Although there are dung beetles in Australia, they only like to eat kangaroo dung, and cow dung has become a disaster here.

In 1978, our country accepted the request of the Australian government and shipped a batch of domestically produced dung beetles to settle in Australia to help remove cow dung there and protect the pastures. A mere dung beetle went abroad gloriously, leaving a new page in the exchanges and friendship between China and Australia.

The feces beetle also has a wonderful function. Observing its behavior can predict the weather.

On summer nights, when the weather is fine, dung beetles go out one after another, flying around in search of food. It indicates that it will be sunny again the next day. If the dung beetle hides in its hole and refuses to come out, although the weather is fine, it will soon rain.