Sally McMullen and the Dung Beetle
Two weeks before her family left for Africa, Sally McMullen’s mother took her to the library to research different kinds of African animals. Sally did her own research by checking out an old movie where two teams of adventurers race to find a chest of gold, buried in an Elephant graveyard. “After all, this trip will be an adventure, not just a ‘highly educational experience’ like Mom and Dad say,” Sally thought. Her father was going to Africa for business, and Sally had convinced him to take her and her Mom along.
On the plane ride to Africa, Sally’s father quizzed her on the scientific names of animals.
“Elephantidae?” he asked.
“That’s easy, elephant,” she said.
“How about Panthera leo,” he asked.
“Um…Lion,” she said. Sally was more excited to have adventures with animals than to learn their scientific names.
After their plane landed, Sally’s family checked into their hotel, and got on their tour bus to go and see the savanna. Even on the bus ride Sally’s parents were trying to get her to read a book about the ancient Egyptians who lived in Africa almost 5,000 years ago.
Sally was sure that she was missing a great adventure, like a stampede of wildebeests, or a charging rhinoceros, but she looked down at the book about Egypt that her mother was showing her.
The bus finally arrived at the visitor’s center of the Serengeti National Park, where everyone got off the bus to fill up their canteens before beginning their tour of the savanna.
Sally’s parents said that she could look around while they filled up their water bottles, as long as she did not get too far away from the bus.
“At last, the start of real adventures!” Sally thought as she put on put her pith helmet, took out her binoculars, and marched away from the bus.
She had not gone 20 steps before she froze at the sight of the biggest beetle she had ever seen. The beetle was as big as her hand and was walking backwards while rolling a dirty ball that was even bigger than it was. Even though the beetle was mostly black, when the sunlight caught it just right it gleamed with a green glow like an emerald.
Sally leaned down to look at the beetle up close. It was moving along fast, and she didn’t want to let it get away so she pulled off her helmet and put it over the beetle and its ball. It somehow looked familiar. She ran back to the bus to get some of the books she had been reading.
She grabbed the whole stack of books and ran back to where her hat was.
“I’m sure I saw a picture of this bug in one of these books,” She said, flipping through the book about ancient Egypt.
“Aha!” she said, stopping on a page with a picture of a beetle rolling the sun behind it. It said that the ancient Egyptians called it a scarab and thought that it rolled the sun across the sky each day.
“But the beetle under my hat wasn’t rolling the sun,” Sally thought. “I wonder what its big ball is made of.” She opened up the scientific book about animals, searching until she found a page about “Scarabaeoidea- the dung beetle.”
“Dung beetle! Ewww!” Sally said, and closed the book.
She picked up her hat to look under it at the beetle and its ball of dung, but it was gone.
“How did it escape?” Sally wondered.
“A big beetle and its huge ball of dung can’t just disappear.”
She flopped back down on the ground, but remembered her animal book.
“Maybe I can find a clue in here.”
The book said that the dung beetle rolls its ball of dung to a safe place, and then buries it in the ground and lays its eggs inside. When the eggs hatch, the baby beetles eat the dung and come up out of the ground.
“That’s it!” Sally said, “The beetle must have buried itself under my helmet.” When she looked closely she could see a mound where the beetle had been, and Sally knew that the beetle was down there laying its eggs. It was almost like knowing that someone was burying treasure.
Sally went back to the bus just as her parents were coming back with their full water bottles. She quickly set her books down so her parents wouldn’t know she had used them as part of her adventure.
“So you just stayed here in the bus?” her mother asked, but Sally was not listening. She had already pulled out her binoculars to look for the next adventure.
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