Scarab

DUNG BEETLES!

Gien (my husband) and I have a game which I started when he yawned without covering his mouth, my fingers ready to pounce, prowl and tickle; mouth, nostrils, eyes, ears... saying, Dung Beetles!

Most annoying!

... what goes around comes around and I've frequently been attacked.
Now dung beetles often come unbeckoned
as does loads of laughter...

Gien didnt know what a dung beetle was, though. I told him how absolutely gorgeous these little beings are. They scurry along in pairs, always so busy rolling their dung ball between them, which sometimes grows so big they are dwarfed, climbing up onto the rolling ball... trying to manage it ... The ball needed for the female to lay her eggs.

Gien wanted to see one, so we searched Youtube and found a cute little snippet.

I went on to do more research and ended up doing a little drawing.

Dung beetle is a scarab. The scarab is important to ecology as they clean up dung. The dung ball is buried and used for nutrition for the little ones when they hatch. In ancient Egypt the scarab was worshiped. The story is so precious:


Scarab rolls Sun across the sky every day.
At the end of the day Scarab buries Sun.
Next morning Sun is born anew...


(The part of the story I feel less warmed to, is Sarab is always male who fertilizes the dung ball with his sperm. How male dominated was this ancient society which birthed Isis?)