Adults commonly about 15–24 mm.
Fine-art photographic collection
Typhaeus typhoeus
A three-horned dung beetle that cooperatively excavates a burrow and packs underground food sausages for its larvae.
About this species
Minotaur Beetle
Typhaeus typhoeus(Linnaeus, 1758)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Typhaeus typhoeus is a powerful earth-boring dung beetle of sandy heaths and open woodland. A male and female may work together to dig a deep breeding burrow and stock side chambers with herbivore dung.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Geotrupidae · Typhaeus
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
western Europe and nearby North AfricaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
western Europe and nearby North Africa
Sandy heath, dunes and open pine or oak woodland.
Often active from autumn through spring, including mild winter nights.
Dung of rabbits, sheep, deer and other herbivores.
Breeding pairs cooperate temporarily; there is no permanent colony.
What makes this species remarkable?
Large males carry three forward-pointing thoracic horns, producing the silhouette that inspired the name of the mythological Minotaur.
A breeding pair can excavate a burrow around seventy centimetres deep, with the male moving soil while the female works below.
They compress dung into long sausage-shaped provisions in separate side chambers, creating one buried food reserve for each future larva.