CBC’s Quicks & Quarks has a segment on the evolutionary connection between dung beetles and dinosaurs.  Dung beetles first appeared in the lower Cretaceous, 115 to 130 million years ago.  The timing of their emergence and diversification coincides with the rise of the flowering plants, or angiosperms.

In a new study by Dr. Nicole Gunter, the Invertebrate Zoology Collections Manager at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, she hypothesizes that the incorporation of flowering plants in the diet of herbivorous dinosaurs resulted in the first dung source that provided nutrition for the beetles, allowing them to diversify into thousands of species.

By the time dinosaurs went extinct, some dung beetles had already adapted to mammalian dung. These are the ancestors of the dung beetles we have today.

The original paper was published in PLOS One.

Other interesting stories in this weeks episode include:

• Early modern humans in Europe had a rocky road
• Invasive earthworms threaten forest diversity
• Kepler confirms a thousand planets

And more.  Get the whole episode here.