The Campanian and Maastrichtian stages are very poorly documented time intervals in Africa's record of
terrestrial vertebrate evolution. Upper Cretaceous deposits exposed in southern Egypt, near the Dakhla
and Kharga Oases in the Western Desert, preserve abundant vertebrate fossils in nearshore marine
environments, but have not yet been the focus of intensive collection and description. Our recent
paleontological work in these areas has resulted in the discovery of numerous new vertebrate fossil-bearing localities within the middle Campanian Qusier Formation and the upper Campanian-lower Maastrichtian Duwi Formation. Fossil remains recovered from the Campanian -aged Quseir Formation include sharks, rays, actinopterygian and sarcopterygian fishes, turtles, and rare terrestrial archosaurians , including some of the only dinosaurs known from this interval on continental Africa. The upper Cam-panian /lower Maastrichtian Duwi Formation preserves sharks, sawfish, actinopterygians, and marine
reptiles (mosasaurs and plesiosaurs) . Notably absent from these collections are represent atives of
Mammalia and Avialae , both of which remain effectively undocumented in the Upper Cretaceous rocks of Africa and Arabia. New age constraints on the examined rock units is provided by 23 nannofossil taxa,some of which are reported from the Duwi Formation for the first time. Fossil discoveries from rock units of this age are essential for characterizing the degree of endemism that may have developed as the continent became increasingly tectonically isolated from the rest of Gondwana , not to mention for fully evaluating origin and diversification hypotheses of major modern groups of vertebrates (e.g ., crown
birds, placental mammals).