By day, the beaches of the Madre de Dios river in south-eastern Peru are scorching. When exposed to the sun, the sand can reach 45C. Nothing moves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beneath it, the small dung beetle Canthonidia rubromaculata<\/em> waits to emerge. It has a few hours to find and mould capybara droppings into balls on the Amazonian riverbank and roll them home, before the heat drives it underground once more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These beetles rely on dung for food, but rising temperatures are shrinking their scavenging window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA river beach is not simply an empty stretch of sand,\u201d says Elena Chaboteaux, a researcher at the Los Amigos Biological Station in Madre de Dios, run by the NGO Conservaci\u00f3n Amaz\u00f3nica. \u201cFor some species, it is the only world they have.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n That world is heating up. Peru\u2019s Amazon already experiences more than 100 days a year where the heat index exceeds 41C, according to the Peruvian Geophysical Institute (IGP). By 2050, that figure could rise to more than 300<\/a>. For the beetles, which cannot survive in temperatures above 45C, this is a crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n