Wingless Dung Beetle, Onthophagus apterus

Problem:
Isolation of the Wingless Dung Beetle to patches of habitat where it depends on vulnerable mammals is a time-bomb for extinction.  More disturbances to these habitat fragments could cause serious threats to populations of this beetle.

Background information:
Colonies of Rock Wallabies and Black-striped Wallabies shelter in the same patches of vine scrub.  The dung pellets of these wallabies are buried by the wingless dung beetles as food for their grubs.

Research:
For more than 100 years this strange species was known from a single specimen in the Paris Museum labelled simply ‘Queensland'.  It was not officially named until 1972.  Queensland Museum entomologists rediscovered living beetles near Taroom, southern Queensland in 1996.  Searches in 1997 located another population at Isla Gorge, and surveys for further populations are under way.  Captive breeding is taking place, with the first laboratory-bred beetle hatched at the Queensland Museum in March 1998.

Solution:
Long term survival of this species may depend on formal protection of its habitat and careful management of the wallabies on which it depends.

The next species is the Illidge's Ant-Blue Butterfly