Auld focuses on an African beetle, but as her information-packed book notes, similar species are found on every continent but Antarctica, and \u201cin forests, farmland, and deserts,\u201d as well as in the savanna. Among the many books about the dung beetle, this one stands out for tracking a particular beetle\u2019s life cycle, but without giving it a name or personality, or making poop jokes. The beetle mates and tunnels, and its offspring grow inside their dung balls, subject to possible predation. A page of life-size images shows some varieties among the 5,000 species. The language is clear and accessible, with Latin names supplied for many species. The art is detailed enough to be accurate about the small insects while also providing an impression of the savanna landscape. The glowing emerald beetle stands out among the soft-edged images in neutral browns. Small-type captions filled with information make the reading experience more suited to one-on-one; in addition, the book\u2019s \u201cfind the animal\u201d challenges require individual attention. Kids\u2019 preoccupation with poop provides the perfect opportunity to learn about the important environmental work performed by the dung beetle.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Auld focuses on an African beetle, but as her information-packed book notes, similar species are found on every continent but Antarctica, and \u201cin forests, farmland, and deserts,\u201d as well as in the savanna. Among the many books about the dung beetle, this one stands out for tracking a particular beetle\u2019s life cycle, but without giving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}