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Dung dinner

Fossil beetle bits can survive for centuries. The remains of dung beetles show that numbers shot up about 6,000 years ago. And that鈥檚 all because of what they eat. It might be fertilizer to you and me, but it鈥檚 dinner to a dung beetle. In fact they only eat dung so it follows that if there was an increase in their number 6,000, there must also have been an increase in dung. And the culprit? The cow. Cattle were first introduced to Britain on early trading ships, and forest soon had to make way for pasture.

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