#3218 · 🪲 beetles
Minotaur Beetle
🇳🇱 Driehoornmestkever ·Typhaeus typhoeus
🪲 Beetles 📍 in the Netherlands
7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Typhaeus typhoeus is a species of earth-boring dung beetles native to Europe. The beetles feed on faeces of herbivorous animals, preferably rabbits and small ruminants such as sheep and deer. They inhabit sandy soils in light pine forests or sandy heaths . The animals have now become rare and are protected in Germany.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 184 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 4,667 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Minotaur Beetle
- Nederlands
- Driehoornmestkever
- scientific name
- Typhaeus typhoeus
- class
- Insecta
- order
- Coleoptera
- family
- Geotrupidae
- sightings in NL
- 184
- sightings in Europe
- 4,492
- sightings worldwide
- 4,667
- GBIF records in NL
- 6,343
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
relatives· Geotrupidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 122528, Wikidata Q2348552, GBIF 4994273, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.