ABSTRACT
Few Oligocene echinoids are known from the Caribbean . This may be a consequence of the extinction of many taxa from the diverse Eocene fauna during the late Eocene to mid Oligocene, but it also reflects a lack of collecting by palaeontologists. For example, only one species, the heart urchin Eupatagus hildae Hawkins, has been previously described from the Oligocene of Jamaica, in contrast to about 90 taxa recognised from the Eocene of the island. However, echinoids are locally common and moderately diverse, at least in the Upper Oligocene (Chattian). Exposures in old and working quarries in the type area of the Brown’s Town Formation in St. Ann, north central Jamaica, have so far yielded twelve species of echinoid. Regulars are represented by radioles, such as those of Prionocidaris spinidentatus (Palmer), and rare coronal plates. Irregulars are commoner and more diverse. The irregular fauna is dominated numerically by three species of Clypeaster, C. batheri ? Lambert, C. oxybaphon Jackson and Clypeaster sp. nov. The last two taxa are stratigraphically distinct. Other irregular echinoid taxa include a holectypoid, two species of cassiduloid, and four species of spatangoid. Comparison with the echinoid fauna of the Chattian Antigua Formation of Antigua shows some generic/specific similarities. However, echinoids from the Oligocene of Puerto Rico agree less will with those of Jamaica and Antigua.
