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 family Scarabaeidae 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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  • "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

  • (hernesheir, might want to close your bracket after dung beetle... :))

    September 28, 2009

  • Thanks c_b - bracket closed!

    September 28, 2009