Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Backing the Trailer In

The title should say it all;)  Warning fellow readers and bloggers.  I had a little fun with the topic.  If you're eating, you may not want to read further. Today it's all about the Dung Beetle found near Montosa Canyon and how poo transforms our lives.
I imagine rolling up poo in a ball and don't think it would be anything like for example,  working with clay.  In fact, I don't think I'd like this at all.   But that doesn't stop the cool factor of this beetle.
So why is this so fascinating?  I know my sister one time was cooking in the kitchen.  At the time my nephews and nieces were learning how to potty train.  Any parent knows that when kids are not heard, there is something going on.  She turned the stove off and went to the bathroom where my niece was potty training......
My young nephew was with his sister using her poop to draw on the wall.  It was like a brown crayon!  Well this made my sister sick and then scream to "PUT DOWN THE POOP!"
Dogs like to eat it.  So why do people have such a dislike for something we all naturally do?  I even read the story "Everyone Poops"("Todos Hacemos Caca") to my students.  A story that has transformed their lives:)  Of course it comes in the Spanish language and utilizes a very important verb that is considered appropriately a "Go Go" verb in the present tense.  "Hacer" means "to make" or "to do".  To say "I make" in Spanish is "Hago"(pronounced "ah-go").  Simply explained, I can make cookies or I can do homework or I can make poop.  That's where this informative story comes handy.  The faces are priceless and there's a lot of laughter and learning going on.  I try to make their first irregular verb conjugation a memorable experience.  Teaching can be boring or it can transform a person's life. And remember teaching adults is different than teaching teenagers:)  My methods may seem strange but they work:)  This past year all of my students received passing AP scores for free college credit.  I'm a proud papa and I continue to believe that if you introduce a "little poo" into a high school lesson, it can transform.....
....into a ball of something we may all find useful down the road.  So back to the Dung Beetles:) Hopefully you haven't lost your ability to eat breakfast.  Are you still there?:) Anyhoo, I had NO idea that they lived here in Arizona.  A bunch of excited observers came running and shouted, "Have you seen ALL of the dung beetles crossing the road???!!!!  It is SO cool!"   I didn't even have to drink a second cup of coffee to run for this poo.  It was right there!  Wow!
Many dung beetles, known as rollers, are noted for rolling dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or brooding chambers. Other dung beetles, known as tunnelers, bury the dung wherever they find it. A third group, the dwellers, neither roll nor burrow: they simply live in manure. Imagine that.....living in poo.
The photos prove that they live here near the Santa Rita mountains. I didn't have to travel to exotic parts of the world to find these amazing bugs.  They were found by the cattle grills on the road near Montosa Canyon...near Tucson.  I'm a huge wildlife fan and this was a treat to see.  More tomorrow...

25 comments:

  1. Brilliant little beetles.
    Horse shit was an ingredient of bricks over here.

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  2. A beautiful beetle, (Scarab I think). By the way, nice header.

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  3. Divertidas imágenes del escarabajo pelotero como lo llamamos nosotros.. Un abrazo

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  4. Wow, now this is a different wildlife story. What would we do without the dung beetles? And why do they roll the poo? LOL, have a great day.

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  5. Fascinating post and photos! The beetles are just amazing although seeing them in action has rather put me off my porridge!!! I wish I had had such an inspired language teacher when I was at school!

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  6. Hi Chris, have to laugh, last post on death, this post on poo, you are really focussing on the primeval aspects of our lives. Universal, democratic - even queens, even Richard Branson poos and will die. So I don't think dung beetles are disgusting, i think they are cool, and I don't think the turkey vultures are ugly, I think to them we must look pretty confronting. And it makes me think of the custom in India of laying out dead bodies on mountains for vultures to pick clean. I think I'd like that when I die. but it won't happen, not in Australia, it's against public health laws. We don't have vultures, but I reckon dingos would do the job just as well.

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  7. I bet your niece and nephew will love reading about this when they get older:) Love the new owl picture.

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  8. We don't have dung beetles here. But we saw a neat sculpture of them when we went to the NC Zoo last month!

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  9. This is great. I didn't know these were found in AZ either. I saw this activity in South Africa. Our book store sells a book called "Who pooped in the Park" to help ID what animal left scat behind.

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  10. OMG Kreeeesh, what is happening inside your head! It is full of p....! hahaha. I was laughing all throughout. I don't know about dung beetles, i guess we don't have that, but those beetles are really living in dung. But there are people who literally live in dung too. They wrap their houses with those excreta when it is still soft and freshly thrown by the cows. I just read it in books of course, haven't seen those houses in some cold countries. But i guess cows dung is not as foul-scented as humans, because their diet is mostly grass and not proteins. I have seen lots of children, but haven't seen kids playing with them as crayons! Incredible.

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  11. too cute. i like the little tangents into which you go off... or however that is supposed to be properly phrased...

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  12. Yuuuuuuuck, and I use to think Dung Beetle story subjects were kool. Okay I still do. BTW, dogs especially like poop from the Cat Box. It's like "Sees Candy" to them, don't ask me why!

    There were numerous Dung Beetles up in anza in the summertime. Usually near the horse corals.

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  13. LOL Chris. Your post made my day. Dung beetles, gotta love 'em. Great shots.

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  14. What a fun post! They amaze me too. At least they have smartly evolved to push with their hind legs and not use their front legs where their faces would be in the dung all day. :) What a fun book for your class and you are so right. The ways to reach teenagers and teach are different than those used to teach adults...and more fun.

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  15. Me and my brother enjoyed this post. He diodn;t know what the round balls were at first but he does now. from Findlay

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  16. Who'd a thunk dung beetles could be so interesting? :))

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  17. What a funny and informative post!

    Love the owl on your header!

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  18. Wow, exciting images!!! I know Dung Beetle, but I've never seen the real one around here. Thanks for sharing:)

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  19. Everything has it's place in nature. Some are stranger than others, that's for sure! Interesting creature!

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  20. Haha now I have seen or read everything! You can even get excited over poop! I would say this blog is a bunch of crap...but I know better.

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  21. Something I've heard of, but never seen... I think I prefer your (unscented) pictures to the real thing :) Just replace "garbage" everywhere you've mentioned "poo" and you'll see we have plenty of human dung beetles among us!

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  22. Thanks for the warning but I'm not squeamish at all. I watched dung beetles while I was in the Middle East and thought them most fascinating. I mean what else can you do while hanging out in the desert waiting on a war or two? JK. Now the writing on the wall-that would have to be another story-no thanks!:)

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