Ants in my pants, continued

Before I was chased away by the wood ants, I caught a glimpse of something metallic and blue pushing up through the sand about a foot away from the stump where the ants had their nest.

Something begins to emerge from the burrow.

This neighbor of the ants was a dor beetle (a.k.a. an earth-boring dung beetle).  Nearly as soon as the beetle had breached the surface, wood ants came running up to inspect their neighbor.

A wood ant (Formica sp.) inspects the dor beetle (Geotrupidae).

Although I thought that the ants might attack the beetle, each one ran off again after a short pause.

Another ant comes and inspects the beetle.

Then, once the beetle had finally emerged from its burrow, it simply turned around and backed down the hole again. 

The beetle safe (?) in its burrow.

Meanwhile, some of the ants were taking more interest in me than they had in the beetle, and so it was time for me to move on.