The other day I saw a ladybird beetle rolling a ball like a dung beetle. Any idea what was going on?
It was at a similar scale to the dung phenomenon: the dirt colored ball was a few times larger than the beetle, and the same physical motions as the db: kicking with the back legs, head down as I recall.
Dung beetles lay their eggs in a ball of poop, roll it to a good location and bury it. I didnt notice that the ladybird was making any progress in any direction, more like just playing with the ball. That’s my interpretation that it’s an instinctual beetle behavior which feels satisfying so it was just playing when it found a round ball.
In any case all normal coccinellids (Coccinella 7-punctata, Harmonia axyridis, Cycloneda, etc.) do not play with balls (and in fact appear to actively avoid landing on the ground in my experience).