If you know our animal foes as well as we do, then you’re already aware that dung beetles dance on top of their balls of feces. We always thought it was a premature end zone dance (Remember the good old days when dung beetles just handed the ball to the ref?) before rolling it back home.
But, South African and Swedish researchers believe they found the true reason for the dance: they’re Tiger Woods-ing that s@%t.
The beetle rolls its dung ball in a straight line backwards to its poophole. If stopped by an obstacle or for a very important phone call, the beetle almost always does the dance again to once again travel in a straight line to their underground crap chasm. Repeated experiments demonstrate that these beetles are actually using the dance to get their bearings — including “visual clues from the sun, moon, the Earth’s magnetic field or the nearest tall tree” — to plot a course as straight as the constipated crow flies.
Personally, we still think it’s because the beetles know we won’t step on them while they’re standing on poo, a move borrowed from human teenagers and their flaming sacks of duty.
(Turds.)
In the weeks following Roger Ebert’s tweet (ugh) about video games never being art, I decided to try something new. Instead of instantly reacting and writing, I thought. And read. And observed. And then I thought some more. I may have also masturbated to a Michaelangelo. But, then I thought about that.