A review of Sisyphini dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeinae) endemic to Mauritius with new subfossil discoveries and computational taxonomy

Five indigenous species of Scarabaeinae are currently known from Mauritius island, classified into two genera: the monotypic Nesovinsonia Martínez & Pereira, 1958 and Nesosisyphus Vinson, 1946. This study conducts a taxonomic review of the latter genus Nesosisyphus, and evaluates its recent extinction using historical and new occurrence records and subfossils. I provide the first molecular phylogeny and evaluate the evolutionary relationships of Nesosisyphus by comparing two different phylogenetic trees: the first, based on a Ultraconserved Elements dataset (UCEs hereafter), and the second one, on three loci (28S, 16S, COI). I identify five Mauritian Nesosisyphus species, including a new extinct one, Nesosisyphus draco sp. n., from a 4,000 yr old subfossil, described in the present work. To facilitate and propose a new perspective on integrating taxonomy, I used the Phenoscript package to build a semantic description of the five Mauritian species of Sisyphines. This new ontology-based tool aims to give a significant contribution to expanding the potential of biodiversity research. Progress in descriptive taxonomy through computational data will maximize the standardization of anatomical descriptions and phenotypes across different taxa. I diagnose, illustrate, and provide the key to all the sisyphine species from Mauritius, as well as an updated occurrence map. Finally, I discuss how the impact of humans may have influenced their distribution and feeding preferences, with future perspectives in the conservation field.