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Dung Beetle

Helictoporis quadripunctatus

Photo by JosephBullock
Published on Project Noah
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-18.9149, 47.5316

Field Notes

Description:

Spiny legs. It has what looks like one large compound eye. Winged and makes a lot of noise when it flies.

Habitat:

Lives in forested areas.

Notes:

This Beetle was hunkered down on the red madagascar dirt road my wife and I were walking on. It looked dead, so I picked it up with a piece of bark and carried for about 5 minutes when it started moving. I placed it inside a plastic soda cracker wrapper lying nearby and transported it back to be photographed on a banana flower petal and it noisily flew off after collecting itself. It does have a sleeper mode it goes into and that's why it looked dead and was dust covered from a recent rain.

Species ID Suggestions

Madagascar dung beetle

Helictopleurus quadripunctatus

Comments (1)

Great job on the I.D.! I just looked them up and see that they are threatened because of deforestation. We have a lot of trees here and probably lots of dung, but not from lemurs.
Photographed
PublishedApril 24, 2011

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