One of the odd things we noticed upon moving here were the numerous and different sand mounds in the yard. The large smooth ones in linear strings I correctly guessed were pocket gophers, but the smaller, usually “sand macaroni pile” mounds were elusive in yielding an explanation. I kicked open some of the wet mounds early in the morning in the hope that I’d catch their creators in the act. In early May I found the smaller black, horned Mycotrupes, and again in November the fresh mounds I examined revealed the stunning, much larger metallic blue/purple Peltotrupes Profundus. They are both specialized types of earth-boring dung beetle that primarily consume decaying leaf litter rather than dung, using it to feed their larvae in subterranean brood chambers. Both are valuable for turning and fertilizing the nutrient-poor ground in this sandhill ecology. I’ll take these mounds over gopher mounds any day! We have an uncanny concentration of some of the coolest, most elusive beetles in the country, and I’m just getting started with these specialized earth-boring scarab beetles. One more reason to manually weed and not poison the land.
James V. Freeman is an established visual artist (oil painting) with a deep interest in natural history, plants and farming. He has had numerous solo shows, a solo museum show, an upcoming museum show and his work has been featured in many publications to date. He currently has a studio in Williston, Fl at the family farm and homestead, "Cactus Island", and as a farmer, specializes in growing columnar cacti of the Caribbean and Gulf countries as well as the aquatic Madegascar Lace Plant. James and his mom Sharon manage and develop the permaculture homestead.
