The oldest known Carboniferous rugose coral fauna in the Canadian Arctic Islands was collected in the Yelverton Inlet area of northern Ellesmere Island, from Bashkirian carbonates of the lower Nansen and Otto Fiord formations. It includes the genera Dibunophyllum Thomson and Nicholson, Lonsdaleia McCoy, Palaeosmilia Milne-Edwards and Haime and Tizraia? Said and Rodríguez. Such a generic assemblage is unknown elsewhere above the Serpukhovian. An upper? Bashkirian specimen of Paraheritschioides Sando, collected above the main fauna, is the oldest known representative of that genus. Faunal comparisons suggest Novaya Zemlya or northern Timan as the most likely source areas for the Yelverton Inlet fauna.