Dumbledor

A couple of days looking at habitat management for invertebrates last week focused on providing for their often complex life histories. Whilst poking around in cow dung, as you do, this chap, the Northern Dor Beetle or Dumbledor, Anoplotrupes stercorosus, trundled by. These dung beetles are usually to be seen carrying mites around their bodies and it is perhaps an easy assumption that these mites are parasites on the beetle. The truth, apparently, is far more complex. The beetle excavates a burrow and provisions it with fresh dung before laying eggs in the burrow. The beetle then leaves some mites behind, as they eat the growth of fungi that would make the dung mouldy and thus inedible for the developing beetle larvae. The beetle and the mite thus both benefit; a fine example of mutualism.

J K Rowling apparently chose the name of the Harry Potter character as it is the old English name for bumblebee and she imagined the "wizard humming to himself a lot". Dumbledor is also one of the common names for this splendid beetle, but I guess she didn't imagine him rolling around in shit.