Australian Dung Beetle Project
With the colonization of Australian by Europeans the introduction of European agricultural practices came with them. In this was the introduction of placental ruminants; although Australia had dung beetles adapted to ruminant marsupials the native species were unequipped to handle the placentals waste. It was estimated that the placentals deposited 33 million tonnes of dung per year. The vast amounts of faecal matter increased bush fly populations and loss of pasture. In response to the problem the Australian Dung Beetle Project (Nichols et al. 2008). Between the years of 1967 and 1982 the CSIRO attempted to introduce 55 species of dung beetle adapted to placentals and climactic conditions similar to Australia. Of these 55, 37 of the species were intended for summer rainfall regions in Northern Australia and of these 37 species only 29 were successfully introduced(Dung Beetle Project 2011).