Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various beetles chiefly of the family Scarabaeidae that feed on dung and lay their eggs in it, often rolling it into balls.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A type of
beetle of the familyScarabaeidae noted for rolling dung into spherical balls and pushing it.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of numerous beetles that roll balls of dung on which they feed and in which they lay eggs
Etymologies
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Examples
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hernesheir commented on the word dung beetle
"As I sat on a boulder at the edge of the road to Bandipore to the Gurais Valley and Nanga Parbat, I suddenly saw a mud-colored marble rolling across the grass surface of the track...I learnt later that it was a dung beetle, and that the 'marble' was made of dung of a consistency suitable to receive the beetle's eggs.
T.M. Ward, Devon: "The Countryman (British agricultural quarterly) Winter issue, 1956, p. 702-703.
September 28, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word dung beetle
(hernesheir, might want to close your bracket after dung beetle... :))
September 28, 2009
hernesheir commented on the word dung beetle
Thanks c_b - bracket closed!
September 28, 2009