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Upper Jurassic nesting site from Paimogo (Lourinhã, Portugal) yielded the oldest dinosaur theropod embryos ever found. Numerous bones, including skull bones, from the skeleton of these embryos have been collected. The study of bones and embryos offers the possibility to learn more on the early life of theropod dinosaurs.

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The amniote eggshell functions as a respiratory structure adapted for the optimal transmission of respiratory gasses to and from the embryo according to its physiological requirements. Therefore amniotes with higher oxygen requirements, such as those that sustain higher metabolic rates, can be expected to have eggshells that can maintain a greater gas flux to and from the egg. Studies of extant amniotes have found that eggshells of reduced porosity impose a limit on the metabolic rate of the offspring. Here we show a highly significant relationship between metabolic rates and eggshell porosity in extant amniotes that predicts highly endothermic metabolic rates in dinosaurs. This study finds the eggshell porosity of extant endotherms to be significantly higher than that of extant ectotherms. Eggshell porosity values of dinosaurs are found to be significantly higherthan that of extant ectotherms, but not extant endotherms. Dinosaur eggshells are commonly preserved in the fossil record, and porosity may be readily identified and measured. This provides a simple tool to identify metabolic rates in extinct egg-laying tetrapods whose eggs possessed a mineralized shell

The Upper Jurassic of Portugal has a rich vertebrate fauna well documented from both body and trace fossils. Although the occurrence of crocodyles and pterosaurs is well documented from body fossils, trace fossils from both groups were unknown until now. Here we describe an isolated crocodyle-like track from Praia da Peralta and pterosaur tracks from the Kimmeridgian of Pedreira do Avelino, Sesimbra (Azóia Fm.) and Porto das Barcas, Lourinhã (Lourinhã Fm.). An enigmatic track suggests the possible presence of a small, tail-dragging tetrapod. Possible track-makers are suggested based on the known Late Jurassic vertebrate fauna of Portugal.

Este capítulo apresenta uma visão geral da paleobiodiversidade alfa de Angola com base no registo fóssil disponível, o qual se limita às rochas sedimentares, a sua idade variando entre o Pré‑Câmbrico e o pre‑
sente. O período geológico com a maior paleobiodiversidade no registo fóssil angolano é o Cretácico, com mais de 80% do total dos táxones fósseis conhecidos, especialmente moluscos marinhos, sendo estes na sua maioria
amonites. Os vertebrados representam cerca de 15% da fauna conhecida e cerca de um décimo destes são espécies descritas pela primeira vez com base em espécimes de Angola.

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A large, well-preserved vertebrate coprolite was found in a lacustrine sediment in the Malmros Klint Formation of the Late Triassic Fleming Fjord Group in the Jameson Land Basin, central East Greenland. The size and internal and external morphology of the coprolite is consistent with that of crocodilian coprolites and one end of the coprolite exhibits evidence of post-egestion trampling. As the associated vertebrate fauna of the Fleming Fjord Group contains abundant remains of pseudosuchian phytosaurs, the coprolite is interpreted as being from a large phytosaur.

The basal part of the Triassic-Jurassic (Rhaetian-Sinemurian) Kap Stewart Formation, exposed at Jameson Land, East Greenland, yields an extensive coprolite collection from black, parallel-laminated mudstone (“paper shale”), representing an open lacustrine system. Preliminary investigations show three different types of coprolites: elongated cylindrical masses, composed of irregularly wrapped layers; elongated cylindrical masses with constriction marks; and spirally-coiled specimens.

Sauropods were the largest animals ever to walk the earth, and evolved several specializations in their limbs in order to support their body mass. Their legs became columnar and their manual digits became reduced and encapsulated in tissue to form a single weight-bearing unit in the derived sauropods. A new three-dimensionally preserved cast of a sauropod manus, found in the Upper Jurassic Lourinhã Formation, Portugal, demonstrates not only the shape, but also the actual movements of the sauropod manus during the stride. The manus cast is 32 cm deep, and show the manus to be hoof-shaped and lacking any impressions of individual digits, except for digit I, the pollex. Well preserved striations from skin on the sides of the cast show that the manus was covered in rough, tubercular skin. The width of the manus cast is consistent from top to bottom, demonstrating that the manus was brought down and lifted vertically before any parasaggital movement of the upper limb took place.

[In danish. Title translation: The hunt for the biggest dinosaur in Europe]

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The Spheroolithidae oospecies Guegoolithus turolensis, putatively attributed to non-hadrosauroid styracosterns was first described in the Barremian of the Iberian Basin, and later reported in the Valanginian–Hauterivian of the Cameros Basin, with both occurrences separated by a few hundred kilometres but by over 10 million years.

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Iberian extinct ziphiid, Globicetus hiberus, bears a peculiar large bony sphere in the rostrum, the Mesorostral Process of the Premaxillae or MPP. The MPP varies in size and shape of growth in the six specimens studied and seems to have an allometrically growth in one subgroup, but not in the other, suggesting subgroups correspond to males and females (sexual dimorphism). Even more, some rostral structures, such as the medial pad of the premaxillae seem to be associated with the specimens with lower and leaner MPP’s and ossification of the mesorostral canal by the vomer can also be of value in differentiating sex. Beaked whales are deep-diving, echolocation-user odontocetes and able to perceive bones as distinctive echoic images with their sonar; therefore the MPP may work as a secondary sexual organ (“antlers inside” hypothesis by Gol´din, 2014), a mute display structure acting as an “acoustic flag” to be perceived through echolocation by other individuals, giving information about the shape and size of the MPP.