Dor Beetle

The first dor beetles are usually around in April but they seem to have appeared late this year. Perhaps they knew that we were going to have some late-April snow and stayed safely underground until it had cleared.

This is the first dor beetle of the year. He was making his way across a sheep-mown field in the rain, and making very heavy weather of it.

Dor beetles can fly - just, and very erratically. Perhaps he was too cold to risk taking off but had to find something to eat. This shouldn't have been difficult as the dor is a dung beetle and, with plenty of sheep around there was plenty of that. However, the book says that dor beetles prefer cow dung: to have found any cow droppings he would have had to walk a very, very long way.

Dors are big beetles, this one being almost an inch long. Although they look black, in certain lights and from certain angles they have a beautiful purple-blue sheen to their carapace. This was best seen back in July 2014 when some dors were seen falling around - blog entry here.