dung

Its drill sergeants are on Cam and the rest of his new platoon like flies on dung from the moment they wake until they go to sleep.

Recently, that helped them catch a suspected nighthawker hiding behind a pile of manure after his footprints on the fresh dung heap shone up on thermal imaging.

And when describing her underachieving brother’s shortcomings, she says, “He’s got the brains of a dung beetle and the ambitions of a French bureaucrat.”

The dung beetle, which disperses seeds as it rolls its dung balls, fertilizing topsoil and enhancing biodiversity and engineering its environment, normally orients itself using the Milky Way and the moon.

Other scientists praise the study’s innovative use of high-resolution imaging technology to turn dollops of dung into goldmines of information.