How to Find and Collect
In the Eastern United States, the highest diversity of dung beetles seems to usually be found in sunny, sandy areas (although collecting in different habitats will yield interesting results). As you go from south to north, or from the coast inland (and to higher elevations), diversity generally decreases. North of Massachusetts, there are only a handful of Onthophagus and Copris species to be found, whereas in the Carolinas down to Florida, a variety of large and often colorful Phanaeus (which can be collected as far north as Massachusetts) and Canthon await the collector, as well as many smaller species. Sandy pine and oak forests and scrubby areas are good places to look for dung beetles, and soft sandy soil is easy to dig in. Actually, "looking" for dung beetles is usually not terribly productive. Flipping over cattle dung in pastures may seem intuitively like a good way to find dung beetles, but this method is rarely successful. Baited pitfall traps are the standard dung beetle sampling method. Human (considered to be the best) or pig dung is placed in a small cup or in a mesh bag and suspended inside a can or jar which is dug into the ground. Water with soap can be put in the bottom of the trap (to drown the beetles and prevent them from escaping). More elaborate flourishes can include a rain guard (which can be a rectangular piece of cardboard arched over the can and staked into the ground on either end), some kind of guard to keep out rodents and other animals (a steel mesh square of a preferred gauge is used to cover the trap and the four corners are staked into the ground to secure it), etc. As dung beetles are habitat-specific, setting traps only meters apart between bordering habitats can yield very different species. The drawback to pitfall collecting is that it, like light-trap collecting, yields high numbers of specimens but little ecological data (such as what the species actually eat, or what they provision their larvae with). However, it is a good way to determine presence or absence of different species.
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