With the exception of echinoids, echinoderm faunas from the type area of the Maastrichtian Stage still are more or less terra incognita . Material collected recently in the area by a group of professional and amateur palaeontologists comprises numerous new records, which have the added advantage of being well documented stratigraphically. Museum collections, and those pre-dating 1975 in particular, generally suffer from a lack of detail where slratigraphic provenance is concerned. Not only do these new collections considerably increase our knowledge of Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) and Early Palaeogene (Danian) echinoderm faunas in the area, they also allow conclusions on diversification and extinction patterns prior to and across the K/T boundary to be drawn. In the present paper a brief overview is given of these echinoderm faunas, with emphasis on echinoids and asteroids.