ENDEMIC BRACHIOPODS FROM THE JURASSIC ETHIOPIAN FAUNAL PROVINCE

Workers currently recognize numerus endemic brachiopod taxa within the Ethiopian Faunal Province (EFP): Amydroptychus, Arabatia, Baerorhynchia, Bihenithyris, Colpotoria, Conarosia, Daghanirhynchia, Echyrosia, Eurysites, Goliathyris, Jordanithyris, Polyplectella, Somalirhynchia, Somalithyris, Sphriganaria, Striithyris and Toxonelasma. This list is based on collections from Israel, Jordan, northern Sinai, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia. Endemic brachiopods are those that can be differentiated from their ancestral populations by unique morphologies (apomorphies) and are restricted to a specific environment or region. These taxa are restricted to the southern margin of the Tethys Sea. Endemic brachiopods also helped define the EFP which was tropical to subtropical and very different from the Boreal Faunal Province (BFP) to the north. Rifting resulted in the isolation of the EFP from its northern boreal counterpart (BFP) by the completion of the Tethyan-North Atlantic Ocean divide. Recent studies of brachiopods from the Jurassic (Callovian) of Hamakhtesh Hagadol (Kurnub Anticline) in southern Israel fit the pattern of endemism in the EFP. This fauna was deposited on a shallow tropical shelf in the southeastern Tethys near the equator and lies at the northernmost part of the Indo-African Faunal Realm within the Jurassic EFP.