Brachiopods from the middle to upper jurassic strata of Gangta bet in the Kachchh basin, Western India

Gangta Bet, situated between the Wagad Uplift and Khadir Island in the Kachchh Basin, is composed of Callovian to Oxfordian fossiliferous sedimentary rocks, in which brachiopods are an important component, especially in a local marker horizon (the Brachiopod Bed). In total, six taxa are discussed here: Bihendulirhynchia brevicostata, Kallirhynchia versabilis, Mycerosia rostellata, Somalithyris jhalarensis, and two Kutchithyris species, K. euryptycha and K. ingluviosa. The genera Mycerosia and Bihendulirhynchia are new records from Kachchh and the occurring species have been previously known from the Middle to Upper Jurassic of Somalia, the Sinai Peninsula, Arabia, and the Northwest Frontier Province (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) of Pakistan. Somalithyris, previously recorded from the Tithonian of Kachchh, is also present in the Callovian-Oxfordian Gangta member. This is the oldest record of the genus globally and the presence of the same species in Kachchh and Pakistan is also significant. These new descriptions from Kachchh are therefore of high palaeobiogeographic importance as they strengthen the existence of free faunal exchange between Kachchh, East Africa and Arabia during the Callovian-Oxfordian, and reveal a midway position of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.