A new fossil site at Minqar Tibaghbagh, east of Siwa, in the Egyptian Western Desert is described. This represents the first place in Egypt outside the Fayum Depression yielding Paleogene, terrestrial mammals. Initial studies indicate the presence of palaeomastodonts, hyracoids, and anthracotheres, presumably early Oligocene in age. As only surface prospecting has been performed, more taxa will almost certainly be discovered in future investigations here and probably also elsewhere in the surroundings. A comparison is made with the most important contemporaneous sites in Libya and Egypt that yield terrestrial mammal remains. The selachian fauna from a higher level in the section confirms the Paleogene age of the subjacent strata. It is compared with selachians faunas from the early Oligocene Eastern Tethys Ocean at other places (the Fayum Depression in Egypt, and sites in Oman and Pakistan), and differs from these sites in being fully marine. Contrary to earlier studies, the open marine mudstones of the Daba’a Formation at Minqar Tibaghbagh are overlain by Paleogene marine sediments of most probably early Oligocene age and not early Miocene marine sediments as previously reported. These strata represent not only a new site with great potential for future finds, but also allows for biostratigraphic correlation.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2017
tIn Becetèn, in southeast Niger, is one of the few mid-Upper Cretaceous (Coniacian-Santonian) fossil-iferous localities in Africa where multiple anuran taxa are known. Two of them, Pachycentrata taquetiand Inbecetenanura ragei, have been described from In Becetèn. Both are pipids, a clade composed ofexclusively aquatic anurans. Beside these two pipids, numerous isolated bones have also been referredto anurans within the site, but never referred to any known less inclusive taxa. Here we describe severalidentified cranial and postcranial bones referable to Pipidae or its stem-group, which together constitutePipimorpha. Among these elements, three cranial elements are referred to two unnamed pipimorphs.One of these has gondwanomorph affinities (pipids + South American and African extinct pipimorphs).These conclusions are supported by our phylogenetic analyses. Numerous postcranial elements are notreferable to any of the four pipimorph taxa identified at In Becetèn, although some ilia might be tenta-tively referred to ?Pachycentrata sp. The presence of at least four distinct anuran taxa makes In Becetènthe most diverse anuran site in Mesozoic Africa. It is also the first site in the Mesozoic where four pipi-morph taxa are identified. The dominance of pipimorphs in the anuran diversity of the site suggests thatIn Becetèn was likely more lacustrine than previously thought.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2025 OA
We analyze an important new opus on the snakes of West and Central Africa co-authored by Jean-Philippe Chippaux and Kate Jackson. We correct the identification of some of the illustrated snakes of the genera Dipsadoboa, Grayia, Limaformosa and Philothamnus. We provide more detailed localities for more than 30 photographs of snakes of the genera Atractaspis, Bitis, Boaedon, Bothrophthalmus, Causus, Dasypeltis, Dendrolycus, Eryx, Gonionotophis, Grayia, Hydraethiops, Leptotyphlops, Limaformosa, Mehelya, Myriopholis, Natriciteres, Philothamnus, Polemon, Python, Thelotornis, Tricheilostoma and Xenocalamus, from Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. An interval of four years between the submission of the manuscript of the book and its publication explains the inaccuracy of many distribution maps, and the fact that recent taxonomic changes and numerous recently described species and genera were not included.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
