Scarabaeus sacer

Scarabaeus sacer is a species of dung beetle belonging to the family Scarabaeidae.

Scarabaeus sacer was described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae, the starting point of zoological nomenclature. It has since been treated by "the vast majority of authors" as the type species of the genus Scarabaeus, even though strict application of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature would require Scarabaeus hercules (now usually called Dynastes hercules) to be the type species, following Pierre André Latreille's 1810 type designation.

Scarabaeus sacer occurs in coastal dunes and marshes around the Mediterranean Basin. It can be found across North Africa, southern Europe and parts of Asia (Afghanistan, Corsica, Cyprus, Ethiopia, France, Iran, Israel, Italy, Morocco, Sardinia, Sicily, Sudan and Syria). In the Camargue, the Scarabaeus sacer is almost exclusively a coastal species, living only in dunes and coastal marshes.