ABSTRACT
The Nilotic-Saharian Zone, corresponds to the flat region extending from the south end of the Atlas Mountains to the Red Sea and includes all of Libya, Cyrenaica, and the northern Nile Valley. In this region the continental formations are spread over a considerable expanse, and they have supplied the major part of the known African continental vertebrate fossils. The first discoveries made in this zone were those from the Fayum, in the Nile Valley, which brought to light the oldest continental fauna thus far recognized in Africa. For a long while, the Fayum fauna was known only in the Nile Valley. The first indication of its extension toward the west came about in 1951 following the discovery by Kikoine of a few Moeritherium teeth in an Eocene layer near Gao in the Sudan. The fauna of Djebel Coquin corresponds to that of the horizon of Qasr-el-Sagha of Fayum.
