A new CenomanianeTuronian (Late Cretaceous) insect assemblage from southeastern Morocco Michael S. Engel a, b , Ryan C. McKellar c, * , Stacey Gibb c , Brian D.E. Chatterton c a Division of Entomology (Paleoentomology), Natural History Museum,1501 Crestline Drive e Suite 140, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66049-2811, USA b Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology,1501 Crestline Drive e Suite 140, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66049-2811, USA c Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, 1-26 Earth Sciences Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E3 article info Article history: Received 19 November 2010 Accepted in revised form 30 November 2011 Available online 8 December 2011 Keywords: Insecta Compression fossil Ichnology Isoptera Coleoptera abstract A limited assemblage of insect compression fossils is described from a lithographic limestone of marine origin, within CenomanianeTuronian strata of southeastern Morocco. Specimens recovered to date include a putative isopteran (termite) and two polyphagan beetles. Found in the same horizon as these insects are leaves that display traces of insect damage, in the form of leaf margin-feeding behavior. The new insect fossils are an uncommon subcomponent of a commercially-mined assemblage of fossil fish, marine arthropods, and plants, but the relatively fine preservation of fossil insects collected to date suggests that the Late Cretaceous strata of Morocco have the potential to yield a significant addition to the fossil record of insects. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In southeastern Morocco, near the settlements of Goulmima, Erfoud, and Taouz (Fig. 1), there exist a number of fossil sites where marine strata of the CenomanianeTuronian Akrabou Formation are commercially-mined by locals for their fossil fish, arthropod and plant contents. Study of these fossils is within its preliminary stages, and has focused predominantly upon the diverse assem- blage of articulated fish recovered to date (Cavin and Dutheil, 1999; Murray et al., 2007; Murray and Wilson, 2009; Martill et al., 2011). The underlying deltaic strata of the Aoufous Formation, and the continental strata of the Ifezouane Formation beneath it, have been investigated extensively for their fossil vertebrate assemblages. These assemblages have been collectively described as the ‘Kem Kem beds’ (e.g., Sereno et al., 1996) and have garnered much attention because they contain dinosaurs. Cavin et al. (2010) provided a review and faunal overview of all three formations, as well as known collection sites in the area. 2. Geological setting and paleoecology The specimens described herein were collected from the top of the Gara es Sbâa hill (Fig. 2), located near the village of Agoult, adjacent to the Algerian border in southeastern Morocco. We can confirm that the “Gara Sbâa” section presented by Cavin et al. (2010, fig. 3) represents a portion of the same hill as was sampled for the present study, and that both sites can be effectively synonymized with the “Agoult” locality sampled by Murray et al. (2007) and Murray and Wilson (2009). Much of the upper perimeter of Gara es Sbâa is mined by locals, in trenches totaling nearly a kilometer in length, as the fossiliferous strata are laterally extensive. Our spec- imens originate from the north face of Gara es Sbâa (near 30  30 0 27.3 00 N and 04  50 0 16.2 00 W), and a small-scale stratigraphic column was measured from the same site (Fig. 3). The base of the stratigraphic column is a blocky limestone, which is prominent in the area. Cavin et al. (2010) reported that the blocky limestone contains the ammonoid Neolobites vibrayeanus (d’Orbigny, 1841) beneath the measured interval, constraining the age of the Gara es Sbâa assemblage to younger than the early Late Cenomanian. Based upon lithology, particularly the presence of silica nodules, the sampled interval may fall within the Lower Turonian lithostrati- graphic unit T2a of Ettachfini and Andreu (2004, fig. 2). Unfortu- nately, as pointed out by Cavin et al. (2010), it is difficult to establish a correlation between the observed section and the more thor- oughly studied sections approximately 100 km away (e.g., Ferrandini et al., 1985; Ettachfini and Andreu, 2004), leaving the Gara es Sbâa assemblage with no upper age bracket. Lithology within the sampled interval consists of fine-grained, horizontally laminated beds of partly dolomitized lithographic limestone with occurrences of silica nodules and layers. In terms of * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 780 700 0497; fax: þ1 780 492 2030. E-mail addresses: rcm1@ualberta.ca, ryan_mckellar9@hotmail.com (R.C. McKellar). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Cretaceous Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/CretRes 0195-6671/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2011.11.022 Cretaceous Research 35 (2012) 88e93