Leaf-litter brood chambers in dichotomius (luederwaldtinia) carbonarius (Mannerheim, 1829) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae): a novel behavior for dung beetles

Abstract

Dichotomius (Luederwaldtinia) carbonarius (Mannerheim, 1829) provisions its brood chambers entirely with comminuted leaf litter, mostly of fumo bravo (Solanum granuloso-leprosum Dunal), and covers them with a thin layer of entire or large fragments of leaves. This is the first recorded case of brood chambers provisioned exclusively with leaf litter. The brood chamber is composed of a main spherical chamber and a cylindrical protuberance in the proximal pole. The egg chamber is located at the distal pole. These brood chambers show, to some extent, intermediate features between brood masses and brood balls. The pupation chamber is constructed without any pellet arrangement and differs from others described from South America and also from those preserved inside Patagonian fossil brood balls, suggesting that this branch of Dichotomius Hope including Luederwaldtinia Martínez could be a separate lineage.