An early Cenomanian ammonite fauna from near Lindi, Tanzania

The Kingongo Marls exposed in a roadside section west of Lindi in south-eastern Tanzania have yielded the first early Cenomanian ammonite fauna from the country. This fills a gap in the record between diverse faunas in north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal and adjacent parts of Mozambique to the south-south-west and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to the north. Nineteen species, assigned to 17 genera, are recorded and assigned to the lower Cenomanian. Amongst normally coiled taxa, Desmoceras (Desmoceras) latidorsatum (Michelin, 1838) is the dominant species, making up 29 per cent of the assemblage, amongst heteromorphs, it is Sciponoceras roto Cieśliński, 1959, that makes up 22 per cent of the total assemblage. Most of the genera and species present are common to faunas from Madagascar and north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), but the predominance of these species in the Tanzanian fauna is unique.