Overview
Except for the introduced
Geotrupes spiniger
(Geotrupinae), all Australian species belong to the Bolboceratinae. Adults are often attracted to lights at night; they lay their eggs in deep burrows in the soil and provide the larvae with food which may include hypogean fungi, decaying organic matter or dung. Carne (1965) observed
Elephastomus meraldus
in the A.C.T. burying large quantities of cattle dung in its oviposition burrows, but dung feeding is not known in other bolboceratines.
G. spiniger
, on the other hand, uses dung for larval provisioning and was introduced into Australia for the control of cattle dung. Bolboceratine larvae have all legs more or less reduced without a distinct claw and lack the stridulatory organs and complexly lobed anal region characteristic of
G. spiniger
. [H. F. Howden 1979, 1985; Howden and Cooper 1977; Howden and Peck 1987.]
Description
Stout, very strongly convex beetles, yellowish to reddish brown, or rarely black, with prognathous head and usually with conspicuous cephalic and pronotal horns in male; antennal club relatively small and oval with closely appressed lamellae. Geotrupid larvae differ from those of other scarabaeoids in having a very lightly sclerotised head capsule and 3-segmented antennae.