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Abstract
The fossil bearing beds of Moghra, Egypt, have been well known for over 100 years, but the ichthyofaunas have not been examined since the early 1900s. Moghra, on the northern rim of the Qattara Depression, preserves early Miocene (18–17 Ma) fluvio-marine sediments with fossils of wood, invertebrates and vertebrates. The Moghra site is faunally similar to the Libyan Gebel Zelten site, at least in terms of the fossil mammals. The fossil-bearing localities in the Moghra Formation number about 40 and span a distance of about 50 km. There is likely more than one depositional environment represented. The fish previously reported from Moghra include two teleosts, Synodontis (Mochokidae) and Lates (Latidae), as well as the elasmobranchs, Pristis (Pristidae), Myliobatis (Myliobatidae) and Sphyrna (Sphyrnidae).
Several more recent expeditions to the Moghra localities recovered abundant selachian remains. This rich assemblage included species from the genera Carcharias (Odontaspididae), Megaselachus (Otodontidae), Cosmopolitodus (Lamnidae), Hemipristis (Hemigaleidae), Galeocerdo and Carcharhinus (Carcharhinidae), Myliobatis (Myliobatidae), Pteromylaeus (Myliobatidae) and Aetobatis (Myliobatidae). With the additional taxa from these collections, we can build a more comprehensive understanding of the Moghra fauna and environment.
Acknowledgements
We thank S. Adnet, A. Noubhani and the Editor, G. Dyke for thoughtful reviews which significantly improved the paper. We are also grateful to Dr N.E. Jalil and the host committee for organising the first congress on North African Vertebrate Paleontology (NAVEP1) in Morocco 2009. We thank Hussein Hamouda and other staff of the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority for supporting and facilitating ongoing palaeontological fieldwork in the Fayum Depression. The Fayum project has been funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS 0416164 to ELS and E. Seiffert, and BCS 0819186 to E. Seiffert), the Leakey Foundation, and Gordon and Ann Getty. Research support for this project was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery grant 327448 to AMM) DLC #1159.
