Adults commonly about 11–22 mm.
Fine-art photographic collection
Phanaeus vindex
An iridescent dung beetle that buries a nursery beneath a food source and engineers the soil around it.
About this species
Rainbow Dung Beetle
Phanaeus vindexMacLeay, 1819
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Phanaeus vindex is a metallic green, blue and copper dung beetle of North American pastures and open habitats. Adults excavate tunnels beneath dung and prepare buried brood provisions for their larvae.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Scarabaeidae · Phanaeus
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
eastern and central North America from southern Canada to northern MexicoBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
eastern and central North America from southern Canada to northern Mexico
Pastures, grassland, open woodland and other habitats with mammal dung.
Adults are active in warm conditions and rapidly locate fresh dung.
Dung from mammals, used by adults and packed into larval brood masses.
Pairs may cooperate during nesting, but there is no permanent colony.
What makes this species remarkable?
A pair digs below a dung pat and converts the food into buried brood masses, giving each larva an underground nursery stocked for its entire development.
Females adjust the depth of brood masses in response to temperature, changing the underground climate in which their offspring develop.
By removing and burying dung, the beetles return nutrients to soil, improve infiltration and suppress some pasture parasites while raising their young.