Desperate Aussies were driven to wearing their singular headgear in an attempt to keep the flies, including some fierce bloodsucking specimens, out of their faces. The flies apparently prefer to rest on the corks rather than on their owners' sunburnt cheeks. When cattle were first introduced in Australia, the indigenous dung beetles, having been born and bred on comparatively dry kangaroo and wallaby dung, were at a complete loss as how to dispose of the wet pats of cow dung that suddenly covered their fields. The dung not only prevented pioneer grass from growing underneath it, but cattle were also reluctant to feed on grass sprouting nearby their pungent deposits. Professor Ben Burger, a researcher at the Laboratory for Ecological Chemistry at the University of Stellenbosch, is quick to stress the importance of dung beetles.
Dung beetles are nature's unsung garbage disposers.
Each day they scatter, bury and dry out the dung of other animals while patiently toiling away at their dung balls. They have an indispensable role to play in preserving the ecology of a region. A few years ago, Australian authorities launched a massive programme whereby they imported hundreds and thousands of dung-beetle eggs from South Africa and other countries. Thanks to our dung beetles' healthy appetite for herbivore dung, the fly problem in Australia fortunately seems to have been brought under control in most areas, even those that had been most infected. The only snag, though, is that this leaves us with one less excuse to poke fun at our mates Down Under.