Dung Beetle Research

I just found out – by reading Internet news – that dung beetles use celestial chromatic gradients to navigate. They must be pretty smart beetles. Most humans can’t spell celestial chromatic gradients, let alone use them. If you’re a dung beetle, you don’t need a GPS to navigate. You only need the – what I said before.

Here’s a question: why do we care?

So dung beetles can roll a ball of dung in a straight line without visible landmarks. I’ll give the beetles their due: that’s very clever of them.

But who pays for research that studies how they do it? And why? And who is this researcher who thinks, “Let’s see, I have a pot of money, what can I do with it? I know, I’ll study how dung beetles roll balls of dung in a straight line.”? I don’t get it. Wouldn’t almost anything be more interesting? With less eww-factor?

The one thing this new study suggests to me is that we’re running out of things to study.

I could be wrong. For all I know, dung beetle research makes a fascinating conversation starter at a party or on a date. “Let me show you my dung beetle photos.” Nah, I don’t see it.

Other scientists probably call this researcher “dung beetle guy.” I kid dung beetle guy. I know how very important dung beetle research is to the world of science and national security. If you have extra research dollars, please consider studying the impact of global warming on dung beetles. It’s probably the only facet of global warming that hasn’t been studied to death, and you could earn your PhD with it. Quick, before someone else steals this idea!