What do dung beetles and Nobel awards have in common?

The humble dung beetle was awarded the Ig Nobel award

… via a team of dung beetle loving researchers

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Ig Noble awards are about recognizing research that makes you think and then laugh

Marcus Byrne and his team of dung beetle researchers were awarded the an Ig Noble prize in biology and astronomy for their research into the dung beetle and its ability to navigate via the stars.

Check out his interview at the Sustainable Lens for the full story behind this incredible beetle.

Image credit: Sustainable Lens

Doug the Dung Beetle’s first book absolutely free

…but only for a short time

Download Doug the Dung Beetle – The long roll home for FREE!

As part of a promotion for the release of Martina’s next kid’s picture book, she wanted to spread the word of me – Doug!  So please, if you’ve ever had a twitch to look at my book, but didn’t, here is your opportunity to do so for absolutely free.  And as a favour to me, spread the word with your friends by sharing this post.  Give them the gift of humour and dung, all in the one neat little package!

But offers like this don’t last forever.  So go on, click here to visit NoiseTrade for your free copy (suitable for your Kindle, iPad and more).

NoiseTrade Doug Dung Beetle Promotion

 

Poo-fect bean for the coffee connoisseur

So I was a bit surprised that Marti wasn’t overly excited by the recent present I gave her…

…a bag of Kopi Luwak coffee beans 

I thought it would be a nice way of combining her love of all things dung beetle and coffee.

This special coffee bean must first be ingested by the Sumatran luwak (also known as Asian palm civet). They love to eat the ripest coffee bean berries and after the fruit part has been ingested, the hard bean pops out the other end for local farmers to collect. It can then be roasted the traditional way.

Luwak eating coffee berries
Luwak eating berries Copyright Leendertz under Creative Commons licence – Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Considered the most expensive coffee bean (about $AUD 1 per gram!); it’s obviously one for a true connoisseur to savour. Perhaps an ideal gift for that person who has everything?

Dung beetles once were Gods

Yep, we were the most powerful insect God in Ancient Egypt

Doug the Dung Beetle once was a demi God
My great great great grandfather Khepri

Khepri was his name and sun rolling was his game

The Ancient Egyptians watched my great, great, great, great ancestors as they rolled their dung balls across the hot Egyptian sands. They made a connection between dung ball rolling and the rolling of the sun. It was obvious, the Dung Beetle was the God in charge of the sun!

They believed that every morning Khepri would appear and roll the sun at sun rise.  He would then continue rolling the sun across the sky until sunset.  Khepri disappeared overnight, but wasn’t resting (dung beetles never rest). He continued with his roll into the underworld and faithfully reappeared the following day at dawn.

He was given the name Khepri, which comes from the word kheper – to emerge or come into being.

Khepri the scarab beetle God
Just a bit of sun rolling

Paper made from Poo – What a great idea!

Yep, you heard me. Paper made from poo – elephant poo to be precise.

Did you know paper can be made from elephant poo?
African elephants. Copyright Maryam Laura Moazedi under Creative Commons licence – Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Pretty much any animal who is a veggie eater and has a relatively poor digestive system is an ideal candidate for this ingenious invention.

To make your own, simply gather some elephant poo, wash it to leave behind the raw fibre and then boil it for a long, long time.  Blend the mix to soften those poo fibres, add a splash of colour if desired and slop onto a sieve like mould to dry.

Bingo – Poo Paper! And what’s more – it doesn’t smell (pity that).

In case you’re wondering, this post was inspired by a conversation I had recently with a human who couldn’t seem to understand why us dung beetles are obsessed with poo. In their defence, they argued that humans just weren’t as inspired by something as yucky as poo.  That prompted a bit of research on the internet and not to my surprise, there are humans who share the same interest in poo, just like me.  And if you do a quick Google yourself, you’ll see that there are many companies offering this delightful product.

A poo-fect present to give your loved one next birthday!