Dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) inhabiting bovine and ovina droppings in Uruguayan prairies

South American temperate prairie communities support high densities of livestock, but nothing is known about the ability of the native dung beetle fauna to remove livestock feces. A study of this fauna was conducted over a 28 month period (January 92-April 94) in the natural prairies of the Estacion Experimental del Secretariado Uruguayo de la Lana (SUL) in Cerro Colorado (Central Uruguay). Samples of dung beetles were taken monthly by directly examining 480 bovine and 330 ovine fecal deposits. Since cattle and sheep are both introduced species to South America, the native species of dung beetles had to evolve on dung from native animals. The present dung beetle fauna is probably a remnant of the Pleistocene megafauna (D. H. Janzen, 1983, Oikos 41:274-283.; Y. Cambefort, 1991,, pp 51-68, in: Dung beetle Ecology [I. Hanski and Y. Cambefort, editors], Princeton University Press, Princeton, 481 pp), but megafaunal extinctions probably favoured dung beetles capable of exploiting alternative food re- sources (B. D. Gill, 1991, pp 211-229, in: Dung beetle Ecology [I. Hanski and Y. Cambefort editors], Princeton University Press, Princeton, 481 pp). Patterns of bovine and ovine use by the contemporary dung beetle fauna may be nothing more than an ecological response by species sufficiently flexible to have survived since the Pleistocene (D. H. Janzen, 1983, op. cit). The absence of a significant difference in the dung beetle fauna inhabiting the bovine and ovine droppings support this idea.