Due to its geographic isolation, history and limited surface, there is a high probability to find endemic species in the high mountains of Oaxaca (little or no studied before). The serious threats that exist in the mountains (habitat modification, deforestation, climatic changes, etc.) along with the little knowledge of the entomofauna, put in risk their conservation. This study will start with a fauna list of dung beetles, aimed to evaluate the diversity and conservation status of these groups in the sampled mountains.

The fieldwork will be carry out in the mountainous regions of the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca and Sierra Sur de Oaxaca, where three sites will be collected in each mountain, between 2000 and 3000 m.a.s.l. In addition, punctual samplings will be made. Regarding sampling methods, fall traps baited with dung and mushrooms will be used. Once the beetles are collected, we will proceed to identify them, and if new species are founded, we will describe them.

The chosen sites are mountains that have natural vegetation within our chosen altitudes. The vegetation types found in these places include are cloud forest, pine-oak forest, pine forest and O. mexicana forests. All of them are habitats with a high number of endemic species, which are severely threatened by human activity.

The aim of the project is to identify the dung beetles species at risk in order to be able to protect them. Due to the presence and abundance of each species, we will be able to make maps of the Extent of Ocurrence (EOO) and the Area of Occupancy (AOO). Those metrics are used for the IUCN to evaluate the risk for species conservation. We also aimed to include the endemic species into the NOM059-Semarnat2010 list (list with the endangered species in Mexico, with only three arthropods to date), in order to propose the conservation measures needed for each species, landscape and / or mountain.