This is a western Palaearctic species with a somewhat restricted distribution, occurring from Morocco to Southern Scandinavia and through Western Europe to Poland and Hungary. In the U.K. it is of local occurrence throughout England and Wales, becoming progressively rarer further north, and it is very local and rare in Scotland. Adults are active from February to May or June, and again from late August to November although they overwinter in their burrows and emerge to feed during mild winter spells and have been recorded throughout the winter. The typical habitat is lightly wooded heath or moorland with short, grazed grass on well-drained sandy or chalky soil with a water table permanently below the depth of their burrows, typically down to more than a metre, and they also occur in well-grazed woodland habitats. Pairing occurs mostly in the spring when the males use their pronotal horns to compete with other males, sometimes within burrows under construction, in order to mate with the females. After pairing and mating both sexes cooperate in excavating a burrow about 15mm wide which may reach a depth of 1.5 metres and have up to 15 short lateral branches, at the ends of which the female will lay a single egg into the soil, fecundity is low with each female laying up to 20 eggs. The burrows are occasionally constructed under cattle or horse dung but generally they will be excavated through short turf where there is a good supply of rabbit, sheep or deer droppings. Both sexes work to provision the brood chambers with dung; the male works mostly at the surface collecting pellets, or groups of pellets when they are stuck together, dragging them backwards and inserting them into the burrow for the female who will form them into long tubes which will usually fill the brood chambers, clustered and damp pellets are easiest to work with and so the male gathering activity is most intense during wet weather. Provisioned brood chambers are then blocked with sand by the adults and the emerging larvae will make their way into the dung tubes. The adults die soon after the completion of the burrows, generally during June or July, and they show no parental care. The larvae develop rapidly and pupation takes place in the burrow in late summer with new generation adults appearing from September, generally emerging from the burrow after a period of rain. They quickly commence maturation feeding and, in mild years, will pair