Ciência 2025

At the beginning of the month, from the 9th to the 11th of July, occurred the Encontro Ciência 2025 in the Nova SBE Lisboa in Cascais. This congress is the largest congress of science and technology in Portugal with more than 2000 participants expected. For the occasion, the PhD student from IDL Bruno Maggia, presented his preliminary results on the “Comparative ecology of sympatric Late Jurassic theropods Ceratosaurus and Allosaurus using Finite Element Analysis”.

Under the supervision of Elisabete Malafaia (IDL), Francisco Ortega (UNED, Spain) and Jordi Marcé-Nogué (URV, Spain), this work aims to apply Finite Element Analysis on the sympatric carnivorous dinosaurs Ceratosaurus and Allosaurus from the Late Jurassic of Portugal and U.S.A. to understand the dynamics and the potential niche partitioning between these theropods.

The first results found very similar mechanical capabilities between the skulls of these two dinosaurs during different bite scenarios (anterior, middle and posterior bites) and suggest that these theropods may have used their skulls in similar ways, targeting similar types of prey.

Further studies, including additional bite scenarios, other skull components such as the jaw, as well as quantitative analysis, are ongoing to provide more data to enhance our understanding on the interactions between these two theropods 150 Ma ago in the Late Jurassic ecosystem of Portugal.