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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Portugal has been providing dinosaur remains since, at least, 1863. The 18th century tiles depicting the legend of Our Lady in Cabo Espichel are probably the oldest known dinosaur track illustration. To our knowledge, the first remains found in Portugal were theropod teeth collected near Porto das Barcas (Late Jurassic of Lourinhã) in June 20th, 1863 by the geologist Carlos Ribeiro (1813-1882). The first dinosaur paper was written by Henri Sauvage (1842-1917) published in 1896. All remains collected since 19th century were gathered in a work signed by Albert de Lapparent (1905-1975) and Georges Zbyszewski (1909-1999 ) titled Les Dinosauriens du Portugal (1957) that was a significant milestone in the Portuguese dinosaur paleontology and gives the state-of-the-art by the time. Several dinosaurs are named, described, depicted and mapped in that monograph. The first track record is given by Jacinto Pedro Gomes (1844-1916) in 1916. Concerning the non-scientific literature referring to dinosaurs, in 1884 the newspaper Occidente reports the Bernissart findings in Belgium. In the 1959 occurs the first visit to Portugal of Walter Kühne (1911-1991) from the Free University of Berlin. Further visits and work granted the access to the Guimarota Mine and other Late Jurassic deposits in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s with a high number of publications. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s starts a progressive era for dinosaur paleontology in Portugal with the works of Peter Galton, Miguel Telles Antunes, the Natural History Museum, the Museum of Lourinhã and the New University of Lisbon, Oliver Rauhut, and others.

A single, geographically and temporally restricted horizon at Bentiaba, Angola (14.3° S), preserves a concentration of skeletons and isolated elements representing sharks, rays, bony fish, at least three species of turtles, two species of plesiosaurs, at least five species of mosasaurs, and rare volant and terrestrial forms. The concentration, referred to as the Bench 19 Fauna, formed on a narrow continental shelf at paleolatitude 24°S as predicted by paleomagnetic data and confirmed by plate motion models. The shelf evolved as a transform passive margin along faults associated with the opening of the South Atlantic. Latitude 24°S falls today along the coast of northern Namibia, an area of intense upwelling and hyperarid coastal desert. The Namibe Basin in southern Angola is separated from the Walvis Basin of Namibia by the Walvis Ridge, and the continental shelf in northern Namibia is eight times the width of that at Bentiaba. However, the sediment entombing the fossils at Bentiaba is an immature feldspathic sand, shown by detrital zircon ages to be derived from nearby exposed granitic shield rocks, suggesting similar climatic and drainage conditions between the two regions. Temporal control of the Bentiaba section is provided by magnetostratigraphy and stable carbon isotope chemostratigraphy anchored by an Ar40/Ar39radiometric date on basalt. The age of Bench 19 is constrained to chron C32n.1n and thus falls between 71.4 and 71.64 Ma. Massive bedding without hummocky cross-bedding or other sedimentary structures indicates deposition in shallow water below wave base. δ18O analysis of bivalve shells indicates a water temperature of 18° C immediately below Bench 19. Nearest neighbor distance peaks at 5 m (n=19

NEW SPECIMENS OF ANGOLASAURUS BOCAGEI AND COMMENTS ON THE EARLY RADIATIONS OF PLIOPLATECARPINE MOSASAURS POLCYN, Michael, SMU, Dallas, TX, USA; JACOBS, Louis, SMU, Dallas, TX, USA; MATEUS, Octávio, Museu da Lourinhã, Lourinhã, Portugal; SCHULP, Anne, Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht, Maastricht, Netherlands New, well preserved material of the Turonian mosasaur Angolasaurus bocagei from the Tadi Beds of the Itombe Formation in northern Angola, allows detailed redescription of its morphology and reassessment of its phylogenetic relationships. Angolasaurus had been previously referred to the genus Platecarpus; however, phylogenetic analysis confirms the valid taxonomic status of A. bocagei, and reconstructs that taxon within a clade that also includes the genera Selmasaurus and Ectenosaurus. These forms are united by an elaborated infrastapedial process of the quadrate and a unique ridge-like descending process of the parietal forming the supraoccipital articulation, but also retain a relatively plesiomorphic configuration of the braincase. That clade is united with all other plioplatecarpines by a number of derived characters including the presence of a novel basicranial circulation pattern. In Africa, North and South America, early plioplatecarpines are known by the Middle Turonian and Angolasaurus and closely related forms appear by the Upper Turonian. Selmasaurus and Ectenosaurus are a rare faunal component of the Santonian and Campanian of North America. Platecarpus planifrons appears in the Coniacian of North America and represents the plesiomorphic condition of the clade containing the remaining species of Platecarpus and Plioplatecarpus, that appears in the Santonian and persist until the end of the Cretaceous, reaching global distribution. The temporal and geographic distribution of these radiations suggest influence of paleogeography and eustatic sea levels.

The end-Triassic extinction event (ETE), considered one of the ‘Big Five’ mass extinctions, marks a dividing line between early Mesozoic vertebrate assemblages, typically including abundant temnospondyls, basal synapsids and basal archosaurs, and ‘typical’ Mesozoic faunas dominated by dinosaurs, pterosaurs, crocodylomorphs, turtles and mammaliaforms. Recent geochemical work has provided strong evidence that the ETE is synchronous with, and likely caused by, the emplacement of the Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP). However, stratigraphic sections containing both terrestrial vertebrates and CAMP basalts are scarce, complicating attempts to examine terrestrial faunal changes during this extinction event. The Triassic–Jurassic Algarve Basin, southern Portugal, is an extensional rift basin to-marginal marine red beds (the ‘Grés de Silves’ Group) interbedded with CAMP basalts.... bonebed from the interval ‘AB1’ of the Grés de Silves. Preliminary excavations yielded at least nine well-preserved temnospondyl individuals represented by partial to nearly complete skulls and disarticulated postcranial elements of juvenile to adult ages. Nearly all material appears to represent a single species of metoposaurid referable to the genus Metoposaurus, well known from the late Carnian–early Norian of Germany and Poland. A number of char- acters of the occiput and mandible suggest that the Algarve material may represent a new species. This new material provides new data on the diversity and paleogeographical distri- bution of the metoposaurids, a highly autapomorphic and peculiar group composed of large aquatic carnivores with a unique elongated but brevirostral skull. This taxon also provides [...] Horizon may be within or close to the late Carnian–early Norian. Additional bone-bearing horizons within the ‘Grés de Silves’ provide a rare opportunity to examine terrestrial faunal change in the lead-up to the ETE.

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Modern marine species populations are often evaluated in terms of bottom-up, resource limited structure, or top-down, predator controlled structure. In a larger timeframe, investiga- tion of physical drivers in marine tetrapod evolution relies on the recognition of patterns and the correlation in timing of physical events with biotic change. However, it has been dem- onstrated through the study of fossil cetaceans that a broader deep-time perspective within a top-down or bottom-up framework is informative. Here we examine the fossil record of &UHWDFHRXV PDULQH WHWUDSRGV LQ $QJROD WR GLVFHUQ SDWWHUQV WKDW PD\ UHÀHFW SK\VLFDO GULYHUV RI evolution, and that are also relevant to population structure. In modern marine ecosystems, GLVWULEXWLRQ SDWWHUQV UHÀHFWLQJ SULPDU\ SURGXFWLYLW\ DUH LQGLFDWLYH RI ERWWRP?XS FRQWURO? ,Q the fossil record, productivity-controlled distribution patterns can also be perceived. Physi- cal parameters resulting in environmental stability, sea-level change, oceanic anoxic events, paleoclimate, and paleogeography are examined in comparison with taxonomic diversity and life history patterns. Mosasaurs originated during a time of high global temperatures and shallow temperature gradients. As upper-trophic-level species of modest size and plesiopedal limb structure (capable of terrestrial locomotion), early mosasaurs were subject to both top- down and bottom up pressures. The attainment of larger size coupled with emigration and biogeographic distribution in areas of high primary productivity, and niche differentiation VKRZQ E\ 13C values, indicate bottom-up pressures. Productivity along the African coast since the formation of the Atlantic Ocean facilitated the co-occurrence of diverse marine tetrapods through time, and has culminated today in the Benguela large marine ecosystem. Just as the current Benguela ecosystem has tetrapod species populations dominated by both bottom-up (cetaceans) and top-down strategies (sea birds and pinnipeds), so too did the Cre- taceous community, with mosasaurs and plesiosaurs having predominantly bottom-up popu- lation structure, while sea turtles and pterosaurs were more subject to top-down pressures.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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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 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.