Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] How strong are you? Are you strong? Go ahead and flex your muscles. Can you flex your muscles? Can you flex, flex, flex your muscles. Oh, my gosh. Show everyone how strong you are. Get ready to learn about a creature that is considered one of the strongest creatures on the planet. Before I get into it, would you like to shout out your guess? What do you think one of the strong creatures on the planet is? Welcome to Planet CPR. Conserve, protect. Restore. A place to learn about our planet near and far and in our backyard. I am your host, Fledge Fiamingo. And as a safari ranger from South Africa, I love to learn new things about the planet and the creatures that live around us and then share this with others. Even though we might not understand everything, like spiders, snakes and sharks, they are still important to the health of our planet. And learning something new leads to understanding, and understanding leads to respect. And respect leads to conserving, protecting and restoring the planet we all share. So grab your thirst for knowledge and learn how we can make a difference today to conserve, protect, and restore what we have left. When I asked you to shout out what creature you think is the most powerful and strongest creature on the planet, what was your answer? When I do ask this question, the African elephants is often the name and the creature that people will shout out first. And that makes sense because they are huge and they are powerful. But this is not the creature that I am going to talk about today. Because the creature is so small and because of the job that it does, many people don't even pay much attention to it. And if you saw this creature in the African bush, you would probably go, oh, no, that's disgusting. For me, as a Safari Ranger, I am very thankful for this creature, which is an insect, because it has six legs. And if it wasn't for this creature, there would be a lot of animal poop. Yes, I said poop left everywhere, which would make walking through the African bush that much more difficult and gross, because we would have to walk around all the piles of poop. Have you guessed yet? Because this creature, it has to find the ickiest, yuckiest, smelliest, wettest pile of poop and then dive headfirst and then roll it together to make a ball the size of an orange. Yes. Today we're going to talk about the dung beetle. Are you ready to learn some fun facts with fledge? Here we go. Fun facts to learn about the creatures that we share this world with. Shout out. I am ready. In three, two, one.
[00:02:49] Dung beetles are fascinating insects. And did you know dung beetles can fly. And flying makes it so much easier for them to find their fresh piles of poop. It is quite incredible to see how quickly dung beetles will actually arrive at a new pile of fresh poop. Yes, I know it sounds gross, but it is a fascinating thing to see and just absolutely amazing to know that they are little creatures that will clean up after everything else. Have you ever made mud cakes where you sit on the ground and you grab the stickiest mud or clay, and you grab little bits and pieces and you pat it all together and then you let them dry in the sun? Mud cakes are so fun to make. And that is how the dung beetle kind of puts his ball together. It is male dung beetles that do all the work, and they will spend a long time collecting wet poop to form a ball that the female will now lay her eggs inside of. Once the ball has been made and the male is satisfied with the size and how round the ball is, the female may lay her eggs inside the ball, and then he will go and roll it away. And that is one of the funniest things to see. The reason being, when he rolls the ball, he puts his back legs on top of the ball and his front legs on the ground. He's actually looking down now and then. He will now use his back legs to guide the ball and his front legs to push. And every now and then, he will climb back on the ball, kind of do a few circles and look around, and this helps him see the direction that he wants to go. He climbs off the ball, puts his hind legs back up, and then starts rolling the ball once again in the direction of where he is now going to bury it. Once he arrives where he wants to bury it, with the eggs safely inside that were laid by the female, he will dig a hole and bury the ball, and the eggs inside will now hatch. And the new dung beetles have nutrition from the dung ball for food. At the beginning of this episode, I asked you to shout out what you think the strongest creature on the planet is. And yes, I believe the elephant could have been the right answer. But from what you've just learned about the amazing dung beetle, the dung beetle is considered the strongest creature on the planet in proportion to its size. In other words, it can push or pull over 1100 times its own size. And to put that into a bigger picture, that is the same as a human being picking up six fully loaded double decker buses. Did you hear what I just said? A human being trying to pick up six fully loaded double decker buses. That's just crazy. Could you imagine a human being trying to pick up six fully loaded double decker buses? I don't know about you, but there is no way that I could do something like that. Did you learn something new about a little creature you may have heard of? Did you learn something new about the dung beetle? It is so exciting to learn something new about the creatures and the planet that we share it with. And when we take the time to learn something new, then it gives us the opportunity to conserve, protect and restore them. Even though the dung beetle is considered small, it is truly powerful and makes a huge difference to all the creatures around them by cleaning up all the mess. Even though you might think that you are too small to make a difference. Did you know that no matter how small you think you are, you can make a huge difference, too? Are you ready to hear just a few ways that you can make a huge difference? Well, here you go. When you brush your teeth, turn the water off while you are brushing. And this way, you are conserving the precious drinking water that is left. Another great way to make a difference is ask your parents if you recycle. And if you do, you could help your parents separate the plastics and paper and cardboard and glass. And that way it can get reused. And if you don't recycle, maybe ask your parents, hey, can we start recycling, please? See, you don't have to be big and strong to make a huge difference. And you can begin doing that today. But don't just do it today, do it tomorrow, do it the next day, do it the next day. And keep doing it, and keep doing it. And all of us together can make a huge difference.
[00:07:27] So take a little time today to learn about something new. And you, yes, you could make a small difference today. That would make a huge impact tomorrow. I hope that you have learned something great today on Planet CPR to help us all conserve, protect and restore the planet we all share. Until our next adventure together. This is Safari Ranger Fledge fiamingo signing off. Sam.
