Sacred scarab
The sacred scarab is a strong, all-black dung beetle. It rolls balls of animal poo across the ground, pushing them with its back legs. Long ago, the people of ancient Egypt thought it was a holy animal.
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Fun facts
Its head has six spikes that look like the rays of the sun. With the spikes on its front legs, there are 14 rays.
Its front legs have no feet at the end. They work like little rakes for digging and shaping dung.
A mother makes a special pear-shaped dung ball and lays just one egg inside. The baby eats the ball as it grows.
A mother scarab has only about six babies in her whole life.
The Egyptians thought a god rolled the sun across the sky just like the scarab rolls its ball.
Most asked questions about Sacred scarab
?Why was the scarab sacred in Egypt?
Rolling its dung ball reminded Egyptians of their sun god rolling the sun across the sky.
?What does a sacred scarab eat?
Animal dung. Both the grown-ups and the babies eat it.
?How big is a sacred scarab?
About 2 to 4 centimetres long.
Myth buster
Myth: Scarab beetles are born from dung without a mother.
Truth: The ancient Egyptians believed this because they saw young beetles crawl out of dung balls. Really, a mother beetle laid an egg inside the ball.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Scarabaeus sacer
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Scarabaeidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Scarabaeidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Scarabaeus sacer (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Sarefo. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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