BEETLE GENUS ONTHOPHAGUS — HOWDEN, CARTWRIGHT HQ 



Figure 11. Distribulion of species of Onthophagus: 

 9 hecate hecate (Panzer) O hecate blatcJileyi Brown 



more numerous iii the Florida specimens. Very rarely two or four 

 brown spots occur in northern specimens. Such specimens have been 

 noted from Wisconsin, Michigan, Arkansas, Iowa, Texas, and New 

 Mexico, as well as the southeastern States. 



Onthophagous hecate is the most A^ddely distributed and one of the 

 most common of the North American species. As an adult it has 

 been taken under many types of dung, rotting fungi and fruit, at 

 carrion, in bait traps, and at light. Cow droppings seem to be pre- 

 ferred but many specimens have been found on human feces and on 

 droppings from dogs, rabbits, and horses; a few fragments of adults 

 were found also in wood rat nests in the Great Smoky Mountain 

 National Park in Tennessee. 



Ritcher (1945, p. 14-15) stated that "at Lexington, Kentucky, 

 adults of 0. hecate are abundant in fresh cow dung during May, June, 

 and July. They dig tunnels beneath the droppings to a depth of 2 to 

 9 inches and pack the lower end of each with a wad of dung. Tun- 

 nels are nearly vertical for most of their length but each turns near 

 its lower end so that the manure pellet lies nearly horizontally. The 

 farther end of the pellet, at the end of the burrow, is bulbous; the egg 

 is laid in a small cell in the other, neck-like end. When full grown, 

 the larva constructs an elliptical pupal cell within the remains of the 

 old dung pellet." In South Carolina, adults have been taken in 

 every month of the year except January. 



