Here’s how to catch a dung beetle in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. Yes, the dung beetle is a species of insect that feeds on feces. Actually, it’s an informal group of scarab beetles composed of multiple species that all have one thing in common: they eat poop. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
There are a few different kinds of dung beetle, but they can generally be categorized as “rollers” or “dwellers.” Rollers will actually find some excrement, roll it up into a ball, and then roll it back to their dens where they’ll use it to feed their young. Dwellers cut out the exercise and just decide to live in a pile of crap.
Thankfully, Animal Crossing: New Horizons does not have little beetles rolling balls of dung around your island (or piles of crap that you’ll have to sift through in order to find a beetle). Instead, Nintendo has taken a clever approach to dung beetles that turns them into festive little guys that like to roll up snowballs and not poop balls.
Where You Can Find Dung Beetles
Dung beetles can be found during the winter months on your island. In the Northern Hemisphere, that means during the months of December, January, and February, while in the Southern Hemisphere, that means June, July, and August.
Once there’s some snow on the ground, you can find dung beetles pretty much anywhere. They’re random spawns, but they’ll always be found pushing a little snowball around. Once you’ve spotted a moving snowball, you should be able to spot a dung beetle hard at work. They’re so distracted with pushing that snowball that they’re pretty easy to catch. They won’t run away, so all you need to do is line up your net and keep swinging until you catch one.
You can sell a dung beetle for 3000 bells (which is a pretty good sum considering how common they can be during the winter), or you can donate them to the museum.
