I will never eat shit again! I want to get out of the involution!

The greatest sorrow in the world is that you can’t even eat hot shit - this is true in the world of dung beetles.

There are many species of dung beetles, and the competition for food is very fierce. So some dung beetles have begun to look for other ways out, such as the dung beetle with the scientific name Deltochilum valgum, which has directly left the internal competition for shit and switched to eating meat.

Dung beetles fight over dung | National Geographic

D. valgum is a good hunter of millipedes (also called millipedes). Although it is only 0.8 cm long, it can kill 10 cm millipedes. When a millipede encounters a predator, it will coil into a "big roll" to defend itself. The dung beetle will use its hind legs and middle legs to hold the millipede, trying to pull the "worm roll" apart. Its hind legs are longer and more curved than those of ordinary dung beetles, so it can firmly hook the millipede's body.

When the millipede gradually becomes exhausted and its struggles weaken, the dung beetle uses the sharp teeth on the top of its head to pierce the seam of the millipede's body segments, usually the head or the sixth segment of the body. After the insertion, the dung beetle's head pries upwards like a bottle opener, while using its spiky front legs to pry and pull until the millipede's head is torn off or the body is torn in half.

After the millipede is dead, D. valgum will use one of its hind legs and the end of its abdomen to clamp the prey and drag it away to eat. The exoskeleton at the end of D. valgum's tail is raised, which is a hook to hang the millipede. In addition, D. valgum's head is narrower than that of ordinary dung beetles, so it can drill into the millipede's shell and eat the meat like digging snail meat.

D. valgum is highly adapted to a meat-eating life. It does not roll dung balls and disdains any food other than millipedes, but its appearance is only slightly different from other dung beetles. This shows that it has not been long since it gave up eating dung and embarked on another path. Under the pressure of "involutionary" competition, evolution may have occurred very quickly.

The illustrations in this article are not scientific illustrations but have undergone certain artistic processing.

Comic script: Calendar Girl

Scientific review: Species Calendar Team

Painting: Chen Pupu

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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