ICP News
A study led by researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology describes the environmental and faunal changes that took place between 290 and 270 million years ago in the current region of Berguedà (Catalonia, North-East Spain). The Permian sedimentary deposits in this area…
The extinction of an important group of conifers occurred due to male sterility at the end of the Cretaceous
06 Nov 2023
594 times
A joint research effort by the University of Barcelona and the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont reveals that the conifer Frenelopsis reproduced only vegetatively at the end of the Mesozoic in the area currently occupied by the Pyrenees, and this circumstance would have contributed to their extinction. The finding…
A research team comprised of researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont and the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Vienna (Austria) analyzes whether the slow life history of giant animals that often evolve on islands is due to adaptive issues or if it is…
An international research team has described a new sauropod dinosaur that lived on the Iberian Peninsula 122 million years ago. The new dinosaur species, named Garumbatitan morellensis, has been described based on fossils found in Morella (Castelló), thus expanding our knowledge of the diversity of dinosaurs in one of the…
An international research team including paleontologists from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP), the University of Edinburgh, and different institutions from the USA (Pittsburgh, Albuquerque, and New York) have shown that Eocene archaic placental mammals such as the tillodont Trogosus retained ancestral brain features in comparison to contemporaneous…
Scientists from Charles University in Prague, Czech Academy of Sciences, Masaryk University in Brno and Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) redescribed the soft-shell turtle Rafetus bohemicus from north-west Bohemia (Czechia) dating back approximately 20 million years. The work has been published in PeerJ journal.
Calvarius rapidus, the new dinosaur species that almost saw the asteroid falling
30 Jun 2023
2296 times
Paleontologists from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) and the Museu de la Conca Dellà (MCD), Albert Prieto-Márquez and Albert Sellés, have described a new dinosaur species named Calvarius rapidus based from a foot bone found in Pallars Jussà (Lleida, Catalonia). It is one of the last dinosaurs…
An open debate on the relationship between body size and the extinction risk in insular species
27 Jun 2023
765 times
In March of the present year, the journal Science published a study that proposed a causal relationship between the body size of insular species and their risk of extinction. According to the study's authors, dwarfism or gigantism in these species made them more vulnerable. Now, Meike Köhler and Salvador Moyà-Solà,…
Sabadell hosts the most important meeting of vertebrate paleontology in Europe
23 Jun 2023
930 times
From June 26th to July 1st, the city will be hosting the annual meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary. More than 230 paleontologists from around the world will gather at the Espai Cultura Fundació 1859 for this event organized by the…
Tramuntanasaurus, a new 270-million-year-old fossil reptile species from Mallorca
22 Jun 2023
2776 times
Researchers from Museu Balear de Ciències Naturals (MUCBO) and Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) have described the new reptile species Tramuntanasaurus tiai based on a well-preserved fossil skeleton found in rocks from Mallorca dating back approximately 270 million years. The research has been published today in the journal…
