Could Late Cretaceous sauropod tooth morphotypes provide supporting evidence for faunal connections between North Africa and Southern Europe? Femke M Holwerda Corresp., 1, 2, 3 , Verónica Díez Díaz 4, 5 , Alejandro Blanco 2, 6 , Roel Montie 1, 2, 3 , Jelle WF Reumer 1 1 Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands 2 Vertebrate Palaeontology, SNSB-Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie, Munich, Bavaria, Germany 3 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and GeoBioCenter, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Bavaria, Germany 4 Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions-und Biodiversitätsforschung, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany 5 Humboldt Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany 6 Facultade de Ciencias, Centro de Investigacións Científicas Avanzadas (CICA), Universidade da Coruña, Coruña, Spain Corresponding Author: Femke M Holwerda Email address:
[email protected] The Cretaceous Kem Kem beds of Morocco and equivalent beds in Algeria have produced a rich fossil assemblage, yielding, amongst others, isolated sauropod teeth, which can be used in species diversity studies. These Albian-Cenomanian (~113 – 93.9 Ma) strata rarely yield sauropod body fossils, therefore, isolated teeth can help to elucidate the faunal assemblages from North Africa, and their relations with those of contemporaneous beds and geographically close assemblages. Eighteen isolated sauropod teeth from three localities (Erfoud and Taouz, Morocco, and Algeria) are studied here, to assess whether the teeth can be ascribed to a specific clade, and whether different tooth morphotypes can be found in the samples. Two general morphotypes are found, based on enamel wrinkling and general tooth morphology. Morphotype I, with mainly rugose enamel wrinkling, pronounced carinae, lemon-shaped to (sub)cylindrical cross-section and mesiodistal tapering towards an apical tip, shows affinities to titanosauriforms and titanosaurs.