Spatangoid echinoids from the Eocene of Jamaica

Paleocene spatangoids are unknown from the Antilles, apart from evidence fr om trace fossils. The peak of spatangoid diversity was the Eocene. Jamaican Oligo-Miocene spatangoids have a relatively low diversity compared with th at of the Antillean region. Plio-Pleistocene spatangoids are poorly known f rom the Antilles (four general, in contrast to the Oligo-Miocene (16 genera l and Holocene (17 general. The depauperate Paleocene and Plio-Pleistocene spatangoid faunas are probably in part artifacts of incomplete sampling, fa cies-related absences, outcrop area effects and the relative brevity of the se stratigraphic intervals. To the large echinoid fauna of the Swanswick Fo rmation (Middle-Upper Eocene) of Jamaica is added the schizasterid Aguayoas ter schickleri new species. This is the first record of this genus outside Cuba; it is distinctly more elongate than all other known specimens of this genus. The schizasterid Caribbaster loveni (Cotteau, 1875) is recorded fro m the Swanswick Formation for the first time, the youngest occurrence of th is genus in Jamaica. The coeval Claremont Formation has not previously yiel ded spatangoid echinoids; the brissid Eupatagus cf. antillarum (Cotteau) fr om a new locality is the first spatangoid known from a lagoonal unit of the White Limestone Group.