It's the Bugs

I don't want anyone to think that the photo in my last post was a sly, snarky reference to santorum--the subject of the photo was the pair of breeding beetles, not the dung upon which they were cavorting. I didn't have any photos of Rick Santorum's man-on-dog, so I used what I had. Here's a closer view of the same photo:

The happy couple are American carrion beetles, Necrophila americana. As their name suggests, they can often be found on dead critters. In this case, they were exchanging intense joy atop dog feces in my back yard. Their distinctive black markings on pale yellow prothorax can be seen in the photo below: