Senior Research Scientist Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
The dung beetle Chilothorax distinctus is a European species widely established across North America. Adults are beneficial in that they feed and tunnel in fresh livestock dung to scatter the deposit and return nutrients more quickly to the soil. However, the adults lay their eggs in organic rich soils where larvae may become pests of turf and agricultural crops. Here I review the biology of the species, summarize reports of suspected larval feeding damage from the Canadian Prairies, and present experiment findings. These collective data support suspicions that C. distinctus is an occasional pest in agro-ecosystems for which control measure may not be warranted or even possible.
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