Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are re-discovering the dung beetle's talent for making perfect snowboys

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
(Image credit: Nintendo)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are rediscovering the dung beetle's talent for forming perfect snowboys. 

Originally discovered this time last year, some new players of Animal Crossing: New Horizons are only just realizing that dung beetles have a penchant for rolling snowballs.  

The bug, which is only available from December - February in the northern hemisphere, and June - August in the southern hemisphere, actually has the ability to roll snowballs to just the right size for a perfect snowboy. You can see proof of this below.

I deployed my minions to do my dirty work from r/AnimalCrossing

Dung beetles are usually found rolling snowballs around your island, but they become spooked and fly away if you get too close to them. 

From the video above, it looks as if this player allowed the bugs to continue rolling until the snowballs were just the right size before scaring them off and continuing to create the snowboy from there. Teamwork at its finest. 

The player, 'PixellatedBacon', posted the video into the Animal Crossing subreddit with the caption: "I deployed my minions to do my dirty work," other fans were both outraged and overjoyed with this discovery as there is a universal struggle to build a perfect snowboy.

Snowmen have been a festive addition to every Animal Crossing game since the first release in 2002. In the case of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, snowboys are created when players combine two snowballs of varying sizes together. If you are precise enough to create a 'perfect snowboy', that happy snowman will give you seasonal ice recipes along with large snowflakes to craft them with.

To find out more about Animal Crossing’s ecosystem, take a look at our Animal Crossing: New Horizons bugs guide 

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.