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Shark and ray faunas in the Middle and Late Eocene of the Fayum Area, Egypt |
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| Authors: | Charlie J Underwood David J Ward Sameh M Antar Philip D Gingerich |
| Institution: | a Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK b Crofton Court, 81 Crofton Lane, Orpington, Kent BR5 1HB, UK c 16a Park Road, Bridport DT6 5DA, UK d Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, Wadi Al-Hitan World Heritage Site, Fayum, Egypt e University of Michigan, Museum of Paleontology and Department of Geological Sciences, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA |
| Abstract: | The Eocene rocks exposed in the Fayum Area, Egypt, are well known for their fossil vertebrates but in recent times the sharks and rays have been largely neglected. Extensive surface collecting, supplemented with bulk samples, has produced large collections from the Midawara, Gehannam, Birket Qarun and Qasr el-Sagha formations, spanning the Bartonian and Priabonian stages and from palaeoenvironments varying from open muddy shelf to very shallow estuarine systems. In total about 90 species of sharks and rays are recorded, many of them previously unrecognised, resulting in some of the most diverse fossil chondrichthyan assemblages known from the Tertiary. Teeth of these species suggest that they occupied a wide range of ecological niches from top predator to tiny benthic invertebrate feeder to planktivore. Many of the species are limited in their stratigraphical range and show potential to be used, at least locally, as biostratigraphical indicators for stratigraphically poorly constrained vertebrate sites elsewhere in North Africa. Distinctly different faunas from different sedimentary environments indicate a strong environmental control on the distribution of many species. |
| Keywords: | Egypt Eocene Palaeoecology Shark Ray |
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