TOMBS BELOW ARUBA

It is said that the brood chamber of the dung beetle gave the ancient Egyptians, in their quest for immortality, the idea of embalming their pharaohs in tombs below pyramids. There is a giant dung, heliocopris dilloni, which digs a huge brood chamber underground where it lives for much of its life. The chamber, the pile of soil above, and the remarkable changes of the beetle’s egg, locked inside a mud-caked ball in the chamber while it goes through the stages of metamorphosis could conceivably have been seen as reincarnation by the ancient Egyptians. This beetle has a unique relationship with the elephant, for it feeds on micro-organisms found only in elephant dung. Through a complex chain of events, this leads to the revival of the vegetation on which the elephant itself relies.

Many predators such as the Spotted Eagle Owl and the Civet Cat prey on the beetles above ground…but there is only one predator which consistently attacks the beetles in their chambers below ground: the Honey Badger. In some unknown way, the badger can detect the beetles, enclosed in their mud-caked dung-balls two feet below ground, and digs them out to feed on the nutritious larvae. Many beetles are dug up by badgers during the harsh dry season, but some do survive to perpetuate the species, as they have done for millions of years.

• Available in: English, KiSwahili, French & Arabic
• Running Time: 1 hour