Addo Flightless Dung Beetle
Once found throughout South Africa, this spectacular flightless scarab beetle, today’s Endangered All-Star, is considered vulnerable since its habitat has shrunk to a single park—Addo Elephant Park in the Eastern Cape Province. Its population dwindling along with its two favorite poop-providers, the elephant and the Cape buffalo, the flightless dung beetle is also limited by its slow reproductive rate. With one breeding cycle most years, the female often produces only a single offspring each year, staying with the larva as it develops, scraping away fungus that forms on the outside of the dung ball on which she has deposited her egg. This species is known to consume the dung of rabbits, baboons, antelopes, ostriches, and humans, but prefers that of the buffalo for breeding. For more, see Biodiversity Explorer: The Web of Life in Southern Africa.
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