Woody plant communities of southern South Africa and new distribution records for the rare dung beetle species Sarophorus punctatus Frolov & Scholtz, 2003 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae)

Abstract

The southern and southeastern seaboard of South Africa is characterised by an indigenous floral mosaic of natural forest patches and Fynbos or Renosterveld shrublands, some of which are now highly threatened (Mucina & Rutherford 2006). These plant communities harbour a number of endemic dung beetle species many of which are derived along the basal branches of a global phylogeny of scarabaeine dung beetles (Tarasov & Dimitrov 2016). Many of these basal groups show restricted known distributions that may be under threat due to widespread clearance of woody vegetation for farming and urban expansion (Mucina & Rutherford 2006; Davis et al. 2020). The present communication describes new distribution records for one of these dung beetle species that illustrates the current, poor state of knowledge of endemic dung beetle distribution in this region of threatened vegetation communities.