Embrace your inner dung beetle

This week, I discovered something marvelous: that there is an entire genus of dung beetles named Sisyphus. I really should not be surprised, since someone called Latreille named it back in 1807, so it’s hardly hot off the press.

Still, this resonated, because I've had a week of setbacks, and my knees are dusty and scabbed. Onward and upward with that old boulder up the hill.

There are more than 5000 species of dung beetles, found across every continent except Antarctica. The Scarabaeoidea (what an utterly fabulous word!) is a superfamily consisting of some 35,000 species. New species are added all the time as taxonomists decide who belongs in which box. “True” dung beetles (what is truth anyway?) are named Scarabaeinae, which is not quite as cool a word, but still worth remembering.

I’ve been fascinated by dung beetles since forever. I’ve watched them rolling their balls of poo across rutted Lowveld tracks, or bashing themselves with great determination against a light on a sultry December evening. I’ve read about their significance to the Egyptians, who used the hieroglyphic of the dung beetle to represent the concept of “transformation”. More recently, on a walk in the Pilansberg, I discovered that ratels are experts at sniffing out and digging out their carefully deposited drolletjie bolletjies in order to eat the growing pupae.

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Dung beetles can be beautiful. Somewhat like the hadedas that inhabit our gardens and our soundscapes, they have bad PR while boasting the ability to flash fabulous metallic sheens for those who know how to look. Low key and Met Gala all in one. (One of my aunts, who worked in the Middle East for a time, once gave all of the cousins a resin keyring containing an unfortunate insect, and I scored the iridescent green dung beetle. It’s probably still in my parents’ house somewhere).

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Recently, scientists described the ability of Scarabaeus satyrus?to navigate using the glow of the Milky Way. I like the idea of living in dung and doing something valuable with it, while steering by the stars, and I have created a couple of paintings on the theme. Dung beetles are vital for a functioning ecosystem, and species from South Africa have been introduced to Australia to improve the quality of the soil and combat the scourge of bush flies, the cause of the famous Aussie Wave.

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And of course, I am fortunate enough to still get to spend time in the bush, which means that I have lost count of the number of times I have slowed a Land Rover to a standstill while waiting for our insect Sisyphi to cross the road.

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My husband says that since dung beetles can fly, it is better to launch yourself into the air than live in poo. Let go of your inner dung beetle, he advises. But I don’t agree. Dung beetles live off a bountiful food source, ensure that nutrients are recycled back into the food chain, symbolised transformation to the ancient Egyptians, and quite literally steer by the stars. I can’t think of a better symbol for the challenges of existence in our fractured world in 2024. I love my inner dung beetle. My flashy little six-legged Sisyphus, who takes on the crap and turns it into something worth living for. You, little dung beetle, are the future. The embodiment of hope in the land of the kakistocracy. You are my Scarabae.