Lucas E. Fiorelli

Summary

I’m an Assistant Researcher at the Geosciences Research Group (Vertebrate Paleontology Area) at the CRILAR institute from CONICET, located at Anillaco, La Rioja province, Northwestern Argentina. I did my PhD on the Sanagasta Nesting Site at La Rioja, a titanosaur breeding colony in the Cretaceous of Los Llanos Formation. The study has shed unexpected insights on the reproductive behavior of neosauropods, documenting colonial behavior, site fidelity with possible phylopatry, and an opportunistic environment-dependent-reproduction relationship with a geothermally active paleoenvironment. The Sanagasta dinosaur nesting site is the first documented case of environment-dependent reproduction amongst extinct dinosaurs.
My current research focuses on the Triassic and Cretaceous paleoenvironments of La Rioja, NW Argentina. The vertebrates (mainly archosaurians) from the province, as well as other paleobiological topics like oviparous vertebrate systematics and evolution, evolution of biomineralized systems and vertebrate mineralized tissues, eggs and eggshell evolutionary trends, functional morphology and their ecological adaptations. Also I carried out research on regional geology, sedimentology and petrology, taphonomy and diagenesis of continental sites, and Mesozoic archosaur biogeography.

Contact: [email protected]

Animal Behavior Ecology Evolutionary Studies Paleontology Taxonomy Zoology