Phanaeus vindex, the rainbow scarab or rainbow scarab beetle is a North American dung beetle, with a range from the eastern US to the Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

. The head

Head

In anatomy, the head of an animal is the rostral part that usually comprises the brain, eyes, ears, nose and mouth . Some very simple animals may not have a head, but many bilaterally symmetric forms do....

 is a metallic yellow color, and males have a black horn which curves backward toward the thorax

Thorax

The thorax is a division of an animal's body that lies between the head and the abdomen.-In tetrapods:...

. Both sexes have yellow antenna

Antenna (biology)

Antennae in biology have historically been paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. More recently, the term has also been applied to cilium structures present in most cell types of eukaryotes....

e which can retract into a ball on the underside of the head. The thorax is a shiny coppery color, with yellow or green on the sides. The abdomen

Abdomen

In vertebrates such as mammals the abdomen constitutes the part of the body between the thorax and pelvis. The region enclosed by the abdomen is termed the abdominal cavity...

 is metallic green. The underbelly is black and green. Body length is about 2-3 cm long.

Males and females work in pairs to dig burrows beneath animal excrement. They move some of the extrement down into the tunnel, where the female lays her eggs in it. The grubs

Larva

A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

 feed on the excrement for several instars until pupating

Pupa

A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is found only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages; embryo, larva, pupa and imago...

.

This species, like all dung beetles, are not pests, and play an important role in reducing fecal matter in the environment, thus reducing the number of disease spreading flies

Fly

True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...

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External links

• Dung Beetle at fcps.edu