Postdoc researcher at BIOPOLIS-CIBIO | Evolutionary biology | Natural history | Science communication
GoogleScholar: https://scholar.google.pt/citations?user=o355sjwAAAAJ&hl=en
iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/people/741651
Hey #SMBE2023 goers! đź‘‹
Make sure to stop by Prem Aguilar's poster with our work on the evolution of carotenoid colouration in lizards (SP_25 - 862 - 704).
Have fun at the conference everyone!
Found plenty of dead puffins (Fratercula arctica) on the beach today while counting birds
While many people discuss #TheLastOfUs, the show in which an infectious fungus turns people into zombies, a short reminder that weird behaviour-altering fungi exist all around us - as these two flies infected by Entomophtora sp. near my house learned the hard way...
For this #FossilFriday a piece of the skull and teeth of Iberosuchus macrodon, a large (probably) terrestrial crocodile that lived in what is now Portugal, Spain and France some ~40 million years ago. Photo taken in Museu GeolĂłgico de Lisboa.
Not a bad way to end the birding year!
Yellow-browed warbler (Phylloscopus inornatus), a Siberian migrant that is becoming increasingly more common in Western Europe, but still rather rare (it typically migrates to Southeast Asia). This species has the potential to inform us on how vagrancy could act as a step to the establishment of new migratory routes in birds.
The bird in the photo was ringed and released safely after data collection and sampling, in a protected area in Northern Portugal.
Sauropod tracks in Ourém (Portugal), made during the Middle Jurassic (around 168 million years ago). Multiple tracks are known from this site - Monumento Natural das Pegadas de Dinossáurios - including some of the longest dinosaur tracks in the world, with 150 metres.
The European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), a common passerine in Portugal. Although the species can be found throughout the year around here, with typically non-migratory individuals, during winter there's an important influx of migrants coming from Northern Europe.
Liaoxiornis delicatus is an early bird species described from the Yixian Formation (Early Cretaceous, ~125 Mya). This taxon has a dubious status, since it was initially described based on juvenile remains.
This specimen was photographed at the Museo Geominero in Madrid, a very beautiful natural history museum.
Galls from the oak gall wasp, Andricus quercustozae (Hymenoptera, Cynipidae) on a common oak (Quercus robur). These galls are formed after a female wasp deposits eggs on the plant tissue, inducing the growth of these specialized structures that harbour the developing larvae.
Outcrop of the Brejeira Formation, a flysch deposit from the Carboniferous (330-310 Mya) from the South of Portugal. These rocks were formed and folded during the variscan orogeny that coincided with the assembly of Pangaea in the late Palaeozoic.