Re: Tumblebugs 2 Serial Number 21
Marq Pargman
Tumblebugs are also called dung beetles, and there are many species of them spread through several genera in the subfamily Scarabaeinae, which alone comprises more than 5000 species. Tumblebugs are a subgroup of scarab beetle. In the above picture the mottling on the beetle's body is dried poop.
Not all dung beetles roll balls of manure. Some species live in tunnels dug beneath piles of poop, and are called tunnelers. Others simply live in the poop, and are called dwellers. Our ball rollers are rollers.
"Rollers" roll and bury a dung ball either for food or for laying eggs in them. During the rolling process other rollers may try to steal the ball, so that explains why all the rollers seen last weekend seemed to be in a hurry. In some species the male and female roll the ball together, while in others the male does most of the rolling, with the female sometimes hitching a ride. The balls I saw being rolled were mostly moved by one beetle. When a spot with soft soil is found the ball is buried. Then the male and female mate underground, and the female lays eggs inside the ball. In some species the beetles remain in the tunnel guarding their offspring
At least in this part of the world tumblebugs are not just unusual oddities; they do important work and people in the know regard them as desirable, beneficial insects. In parts of Texas studies show that dung beetles remove 80 percent of a grazing area's cattle droppings, and that goes a long way in keeping down the numbers of disease-transmitting flies.
Why did my neighbor's plowing cause such a frenzy of ball rolling? Maybe the turned-up soil was easier for the rollers to roll their balls through than the previous forests of grass stems, or maybe the balls had been buried, and now the beetles were transferring their prizes to less disturbed fields. Whatever the case, it was hilarious seeing so many little balls of poop being tumbled across the gravel road.
The grub seems to have been disturbed during its early stages of metamorphosing from a grub to a pupa, which then will metamorphose into an adult insect -- presumably a beetle because the grub is shaped and sized more or less like the grub of a June Bug or Japanese Beetle. The grub's skin appears loose and is developing strange folds, maybe something needing to happen for the metamorphosis.
Grubs I've run into before were white, so I thought this yellow one might be easy to identify. However, neither volunteer identifier Bea in Ontario nor I have been able to find anything exactly like it on the Internet.
I'm guessing that this is a dung beetle grub, since the dirtball more or less looks like the balls of dung our abundant dung beetles are likely to be seen pushing around -- cow dung in the valley, deer dung here on the hill.
Beetles undergo complete metamorphosis. The dung beetle's egg is inserted into a ball of dung, a grub-type larva hatches and eats the dung the ball is made from, hollowing it out, and when the grub grows to a certain size it metamorphoses into a pupa, a strange-looking resting stage more similar to a grub than a beetle, and eventually the pupa metamorphoses into a dung beetle. The beetle exits the ball of dung, flies away, finds dung and a dung beetle of the opposite sex, and reproduces.
from the August 7, 2005 Newsletter issued from the Sierra Nevada Foothills east of Sacramento, California, USA
TUMBLEBUG
Finishing my morning crap, even before I'd pulled my breeches up, one of my little turds moved. I was astonished.
It hadn't been on the ground more than three minutes and nothing was visible at its sides so obviously something was moving it from below. That turd was bouncing around exactly as if a tumblebug were beneath it, but surely no tumblebug would be at work after less than three minutes.
However, it was indeed a tumblebug, a species smaller than the big, greenish ones I've seen in the Southeast. Tumblebugs, also called Dung Beetles, belong to the Scarab Beetle Family, a huge family (1300 North American species) famous for the brilliant, often metallic colors of some of its species.
Of course the thing that dung beetles do is that a pair of them will form a mass of dung into a ball, roll the ball a distance, dig a hole, and bury it. Then the female lays her eggs in it. When the eggs hatch, the larvae find themselves in the very satisfying position of being entirely surrounded by their favorite sustenance.
I had to leave before my little beetle did all that. However, judging from the zeal with which he'd begun his job, I'll bet that by the time you read this some little dung-beetle larvae will be feeling very snug indeed, thanks to me.
When walking through a prairie, or anywhere for that matter, I think most people tend to avoid piles of refuse left behind by critters. While not the most pleasant things to encounter, smell, or step in, scat is an essential part of any ecosystem that many creatures are more than happy to encounter, and in many cases specifically seek out.
While conducting flowering plant surveys at our Niobrara Valley Preserve, I walked through an area of the pasture recently visited by the bison herd and found a couple of organisms making use of the bison pies. First, I found an ornate box turtle square in my path, digging furiously into a half-dried bison pie. Its long, sharp claws efficiently broke away chunks of the pie, revealing to the turtle beetles and other invertebrates attracted to the scat for their own purposes. I think I even heard a crunch when the turtle found something tasty amongst the poo. Considering the number of piles left behind by the bison, I realized just how great a resource these bison pies are to animals like this turtle, as they attract a buffet for easy pickings.
Not long after moving on from the turtle, I found some critters making use of the actual bison scat. Dung beetles are iconic coprophages (excrement eaters), rolling their balls of poop along to feed their larvae, and we have several of our own species right here in Nebraska! These common tumblebugs (Canthon pilularius) had excavated a nice round ball of bison pie, ready to be transported!
Tumblebugs are just one of several species of scarab we have here in Nebraska that make use of animal excrement in much the same way. This colorful rainbow scarab (Phanaeus vindex) visited a cow pie here at the Platte River Prairies.
The older model is still a very nice joystick, and one of my favorite designs, but you just have to keep in mind it may not be compatible with some games (either that, or maybe some component inside it has failed?). That one says CH Products and has a US patent number.
They obviously fixed these issues with the newer version of the joystick. So it's not just the newer memory expandable Apple IIc! I suspect there are several other games that may have issues too. Tried another joystick and it works fine. For no apparent reason, it only allows me to move LEFT. Tonight I was using an original Apple IIc (ROM 0 firmware) with the older Hayes stick and the Datasoft game O'Riley's Mine. Ok - At this point I'm pegging this on the earlier revision Mach III joystick itself (by 'Hayes Products', with Pat Pending).
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Tumblebugs has two modes; a story mode and Time Trial. In story mode, you play as Tumble; a beetle at war with the Black Bug King and his minions. The Black Bug King uses his minions to lead colored bugs into his underground lair to enslave them.
Using Tumble, you match groups of 3 or more like-colored bugs to free them from the Black Bug King's tyranny and earn points. Once a certain number of points is earned in a level, Superbug will free more bugs and the trail of bugs will stop. Requiring Tumble to clear the level and destroy the minion pushing the row of bugs. Matching bugs earns points but chaining (freeing many groups in a row) or making combos (letting groups of bugs back into each other), will earn you more points; allowing you to reach Superbug quickly. One can also score gaps, which gives bonus points based on the size of the gap. Unlike in Zuma, gap shot point values are not always divisible by 10. The gap bonus ranges from 30 to 300. Some bugs will have power-ups attached to them that range from allowing the player to earn more lives to giving Tumble special types of bugs. There are 9 different power-ups in the game.
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