Today, we will betalking about the scarabs, a large family of beetles that have over 30,000species from around the world.

Scarabs have veryround and thick bodies, sort of like a ball. Many species have beautiful brightmetallic colors, such as the Amazonian Purple Warrior Scarab. They are alsovery small beetles, the largest being around 16 centimeters in length while thesmallest are barely a millimeter wide. They have clubbed antennae with littleplates called lamellae, which look like wrinkles. For many species, the frontlegs are broader and thicker, which means that they can dig easier. Somespecies have horns on the head for fighting over males or resources.

The young ofscarabs are called grubs or larvae. These young are pale yellow or white incolor, and are usually curled into a c-shape. They usually live underground orunderneath debris like dead leaves, so they are not exposed to sunlight. Mostspecies of scarabs eat dung, carrion, or decaying meat, and also decaying plantmatter. They are very helpful in recycling these materials. Other species eatplants, like the Japanese beetle.

In the scarabfamily, the most famous species is the sacred scarab. These beetles were sacredin Egyptian mythology, which is where they get their name from. They were asymbol of the god Khepri, who represents the rising or morning sun. There is ananalogy, or comparison between the scarab beetle’s ability to roll a ball ofdung across the ground and Khepri’s ability to roll the sun across the sky.

For Wild Suzhou,I’m Ciana, thanks for listening and see you next time.