Something curious is
this odd and quite unique walking pattern used just by these dung beetles. Now the other question is whether they also
still use the conventional travel method.
One supposes they do.
One also wonders just
how unique this all is and just what the advantage may be. It is likely that the heavy loading makes the
two one stride too easily unbalanced in soft sand and as obviously
directionally erratic. This then forces
the adoption of a naturally balanced
gait.
It is certainly odd and
reminds us of the actual gait choices available to a horse.
Strange galloping dung
beetle is a mystery to scientists
Scientists
have discovered three species of desert dung beetle that walk like no other
insect we've found, using a galloping gait similar to a running horse or a
sprinting rabbit.
The
vast majority of insects follow the same pattern when they walk. They lift
three of their legs — the front and back leg on one side and their middle leg
on the other side — move them forward and set them down, then lift the other
three legs and repeat. Since rolling onto their back is usually a fairly quick
death sentence, this evolved to give them the greatest support possible with six
legs, while still being a fairly simple pattern their brains could follow.
Three
species of dung beetle that live in the desert of southwestern Africa don't use
this pattern, though. In fact, they don't even use all their legs as they walk.
Check it out in this video:
Why
did they evolve this peculiar way of walking? The biologists that discovered
them aren't sure yet, but they do have some ideas. It might be more useful for moving
straight across sand, or in carrying heavy objects while keeping their head and
eyes relatively stable.
"For
most dung beetles, it's always a one way trip — grab the poo, run away and
never go back," said study co-author Marcus Byrne, an entomology professor
at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa, according to PopSci. "The very marked pacing
of Pachysoma's gallop might be giving it a better signal in terms of
estimating the return distance from the food to its nest. When it gallops, it
slips less in the soft sand."
It
certainly wasn't for speed, since their gallop is actually slower than walking with all six
legs. However, when you're carrying around a lump of poo that's quite possibly
bigger than you are, you're probably not getting a lot of speed along your
journey anyway.
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