One of the smallest but best known inhabitants of the Addo Elephant National Park is the Flightless Dung Beetle (Circellium bacchus). The Flightless Dung Beetle is endemic to the Addo Elephant Park and surrounds and very unique in the fact that they can’t fly and hence the name.
This fact also makes the beetle a vulnerable species as they only use elephant and buffalo dung to feed off and lay their eggs in and at the time when these animals were being shot out it meant that the poor beetle couldn’t just take to the sky and find another place with those big animals.
Even though they are restricted in where they occure, they are quite commen within their range throughout the park. Visitors to the park are asked though to be very careful when driving through the park and not to drive over dung on the road and kill the beetles in the process.
I liked watching the dung beetles roll the elephant dung balls. Very industrious bugs.
Very interesting….and boy oh boy does that poo have a LOT of fiber in it!