I, Dung Beetle was a phrase that popped into my head during a two-week desert foray I embarked upon the first time I visited Rajasthan in summer 2006. I was at first amused by the hilariously single-minded antics of the dung beetles who were inevitably drawn to our camels any time we stopped for longer than five minutes, but soon the harsh sun, chafed thighs, and bleak prospects of life in the Thar desert led me to envy the insects' fantastic adaptation to aridity. In a pensive post-adolescent mood, I began to wonder just what it was that humans did that was all that different than the lives of the scat-centric dung beetle. These thoughts came together in a paper I wrote that fall, which you can read here.
When it became clear that I was to return to Rajasthan, this time to conduct research on the biological aspects of camel herding, the need to stay in touch loomed. Despite the risks of sounding pretentious and being ignored, a blog seemed to be the most prudent option. Contemplating how to go about such a task, the old phrase popped back into my head. This time 'I, Dung Beetle' holds decidedly less cerebral connotations. I've finished my sixteen years of education-- found my ball of shit, if you will-- and now it's time to roll it around in the desert for a while.
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