The expansion of the agricultural border leads to fragmentation of landscapes, shrinking habitats and loss of diversity. In these landscapes, the remaining riparian vegetation are elements that help maintain biodiversity. This study assessed the assumption that a riparian remainder can maintain a diversity of coprophagous beetles comparable to a fragment of tropical humid forest. It was therefore expected to find similar values of diversity between the riparian surplus and an adjacent fragment of wet forest. The study was carried out in a locality in the buffer zone of the Paramillo Natural Park (PNNP) in Cordoba, Colombia. Two samples were taken at the time of rainfall in 2011. A linear transect per site was drawn and 15 pitfall traps 30 m apart from each other. 575 individuals were harvested from 26 species. Compared to the fragment of forest, the beetle community was more equitable and diverse in the riparian remainder. The fragment of forest was dominated by the species Canthon sp. 01h, which accounted for ~ 40 % of the individuals collected, while in the riparian rest there was co-dominance of the species Canthon sp.01H, Scybalocanthon moniliatus and Canthidium sp.02H. Beta diversity was < 1.4 (maximum beta = 2); however, the greatest difference in blends occurred in the dominant species of each habitat. The results suggest that riparian areas are important for the diversity of coprophagous beetles because they have higher values of diversity and because they have particular blends, distinguishing them from the forest in the dominant species. However, this result should be taken with caution due to the particular condition of our study system, which involved a comparison between a single fragment of forest and a riparian remainder. More work will be needed in the future in order to be able to generalise.