We don’t talk about it much in polite society; it’s something we do quietly, alone, discretely, behind closed doors. But we all do it. So does the entire animal kingdom. Contrary to popular opinion, excrement is not a dirty word. From a biological perspective, defecation is a fascinating process, and its importance does not stop at the point of voidance.
The fall of dung onto the ground is just the beginning of a complex process of reuse and recycling, and comes with its own intricate ecological web as the multiple dung-feeders and scavengers compete with each other, with predators and parasites, and against the clock to make the best use of the limited quantity deposited in each pat.
The ancient Egyptians were sufficiently enamoured with dung-roller scarabs to create a sun-roller deity in their image. Four thousand years ago scarab amulets were the most popular form of personal jewellery, with representations sumptuously crafted in exquisite and ornate style, or in crude but charming rustic simplicity. We can only guess at their motivation, but it seems pretty clear that the Egyptians put aside any squeamishness about the insects’ habits, and celebrated, instead, their ingenuity, their tenacity or their environmentally friendly recycling behaviour.
Without the unsung heroes of the dung fauna we’d soon be knee deep in our own ordure, and that of our farm animals. This is not hyperbole; it very nearly happened on the other side of the world, when the British colonised Australia and took with them their cows and sheep and horses. They made the big mistake of taking familiar grazing animals to an unfamiliar continent. It took 200 years before they thought to take the dung clear-up brigade. They’re still a long way from sorting it all out.
Ecology, the interconnectedness of every living thing, is complex beyond any simple measure. We cannot study everything, everywhere, all the time; but we can draw some understanding from looking at the small parts of the world, and seeing how the individual cogs whirr together. This, at least, gives us a sense of awe in the diversity of living organisms and the mind-numbing complexity of our planet. A dung pat is a small, compact, discrete unit, but by watching the comings and goings of the beetles, flies and other animals that recycle it, we can begin to see at least some of that bigger picture.
Dung, then, is the hook on which to hang a series of ecological messages, some bizarre, some astonishing, some actually quite beautiful. There is no need to avert eyes, or turn up noses. It is just one small part of the turning of the natural world. I consider myself very lucky to have been given an interest in natural history when I was a very small boy. And despite all the obvious schoolboy jokes, dung was there early on too.
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My father made eye contact and said something along the lines: ‘Can you hear that?’ At first I wasn’t sure whether he meant Radio 4 droning away in the corner of the room, my brother careening down the stairs, or the kettle whistling on the gas in the kitchen. No, he was referring to an almost inaudible ‘tick, tick, tick’ coming from the window. He had the knowing look of someone who is about to show off something new.
As a 10 year old, it was not unusual for me to be sitting in the lounge, as we called my father’s book-lined sitting room. Whilst he sat in the centre of the room behind the large polished wooden desk strewn with pens, papers and books, perhaps a microscope and a drawer of insects, I’d be perched at the smaller bureau-style table against the wall. Maybe I’d be doing homework. Actually, I’m not sure 10 year olds had homework then. More likely I’d be writing up my own nature diary from whatever family trek we’d been out on that day. I might even have been pinning my own insect specimens, or doodling a sketch of a plant, or a map.
The tapping was definitely coming from outside the window. We drew back the curtains, but the brightly lit aura of the room barely penetrated the dark outside. There was nothing I could see. My Dad knew better. Slipping on shoes we tripped round to the front of the house to see what was going on.
The noise had stopped when we got to the window, but Dad pointed to the windowsill, probably just at or above the level of my eyeline. There, crawling across the yellow paintwork was a beetle. Medium-sized (12 mm), elongate, parallel-sided, subcylindrical, dark brown nearly black, it had shortish stout legs and strongly clubbed antennae – Aphodius rufipes was my first dung beetle. It had flown in from the flood-plain grazing meadows that flanked the River Ouse, between our house and the port town of Newhaven across the fields. It had probably come many hundreds of metres, quite an achievement for a half-inch insect.
I strain now, but I can’t quite remember whether I thought that living in dung was an odd thing for a beetle. Maybe the notion of dung recycling had already crossed my radar. I certainly understood about stag beetle larvae living in rotten wood. I probably knew about drone flies breeding in flooded tree holes. It’s all decaying organic matter.
It wouldn’t be long before Dad would also show me the huge dumbledors, Geotrupes spiniger, or maybe it was stercorarius, heaving its juggernaut way through the fingers of my clasped hand, then flying off, like a miniature helicopter. The power of the toothed legs amazed me, and the feeling of that downdraft as it buzzed away stays with me still.
Dissecting a cow pat came naturally to me. Other dung beetles followed. The great glossy Aphodius fossor, slightly shorter, but thicker and heavier than rufipes, was a favourite, so too was the small mottled and rather rare Aphodius paykulli. The chunky earthmover shape of Onthophagus coenobita appeared when I graduated to dog dung, and the mythically horned minotaur beetle, Typhoeus typhaeus, was eventually dug up from under rabbit crottels in Ashdown Forest.
I still find Aphodius rufipes occasionally, in cow or horse droppings – never at my lighted window though. But whenever I hold its smooth, elegant shape in my fingers, I still think back to the warm summer Newhaven evenings, and the delicate head banging on the lounge glass.
Richard Jones
London, January 2016