Echinoids from the Galala Formation (Upper Cretaceous, Cenomanian) of the Ras Gharib-Sheikh Fadl road, Eastern Desert, Egypt

Four regular and six irregular echinoid species are described from Cenomanian strata exposed about 85 km west of Ras Gharib along the road from El Sheikh Fadl to Ras Gharib, just north of the Eastern Desert. One of these, Anorthopygus michelini, is recorded for the first time from the Cretaceous of Egypt. The close resemblance between the present assemblage and coeval echinoid faunas from Nigeria and Niger is indicative of a marine connection between the western Tethyan Ocean and West Africa via what is now the Sahara Desert. The similarity of some Egyptian echinoid taxa to species recorded from northeast Brazil suggests a continued trans-Atlantic link during the Cenomanian.