Driving along a track shortly after an elephant had passed we found three pieces of freshly dropped elephant dung already being harvested by a group of Scarab beetles; elephants digest less than half of what they eat and their waste consequently has a high fibre content, hence its interest to the beetles and use by humans such as to make paper.

My camera was already fitted with a long lens so I took some images shooting directly down from the side of the safari jeep. Not easy as the jeep rocked easily on its springs and I needed to use spot focus on the moving beetles’ eyes whilst shooting with such powerful optics; the slightest nudge and they would be in or out of frame whereas what I needed was to track and frame with great precision. With everyone sitting still I took these images as well as a video of the fascinating spectacle.

The beetles created balls that they rolled in the sand with their rear and middle legs whilst walking on their front pair. When coated with a layer of sand they added another layer of dung before repeating. Once the ball was large enough, they rolled it to their home at considerable speed again using their rear legs before returning back to the dung. As well as this being fascinating to watch, so it was too seeing other creatures living on the beetles’ backs and two of the beetles repeatedly squabbling with each other. It was unpleasant though to see these creatures (each about the size of a thumb) flying in to start their work; they were like something out of a horror movie!

Steve