Rare dung beetle found in Eravikulam park

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:  In a very interesting finding scientists have found that the Nilgiri Tahrs of Munnar have helped in the evolution of a dung beetle from the flighted busy-bees they were to lazy, sedentaryand flightless bugs.The study by scientists of the Litter Entomology Research Unit of the St.Joseph’s College, Devagiri, has discovered a very rare dung beetle in the Eravikulam National Park, which is surprisingly flightless, a strange character among the dung beetles.  This very rare beetle has been scientifically named Ochicanthon devagiriensis, after the Devagiri college. Dung beetles usually depend on flight to reach dung resources. The scientific team of T K Sabu, K V Vinod, M Latha, S Nithya and J Boby hypothesise that the Nilgiri Tahr would have ensured the bugs plenty of food in the form of dung pellets making them lazier by the day. “Besides, they have a very cozy protected habitat, devoid of predators and human intervention such as tree felling. Most of the closely related beetles that we collected from the lower altitudes had wings and were flighted,’’ said T K Sabu.Found in the higher reaches of Eravikulam in the isolated patches of shola forests, now called the cloud forests, the beetles were collected for study by the scientists using traps of plastic tubs buried to its rim in the soil.