Scarab

To the ancient Egyptians, the scarab beetle, specifically Scarabaeus sacer, was a sacred symbol of rebirth and everlasting life.    The scarab beetle is a dung beetle.  It rolls dung into large balls and rolls the balls around with its back legs.  To the Egyptians, the sun disappearing every evening and reappearing every morning represented a continuing cycle of rebirth.  Their god Khepri, was thought to roll the sun across the sky in the same way the beetles rolled dung across the muddy banks of the Nile river.  The scarab beetles also laid their eggs in these balls of dung and the Egyptians observed the offspring being born "miraculously" from the waste.