Aline Marcele Ghilardi

Dinosaurs provide a unique lens for examining how biological traits and cultural processes interact to shape public interest in biodiversity. Using a dataset of 323 valid genera and over 3.5 billion Wikipedia pageviews collected between 2015 and 2025, we applied culturomic methods to test whether attention is best explained by intrinsic characteristics (body size, diet and geological epoch) or extrinsic cultural amplification (taxonomic history and media exposure). Our models reveal that appearance in the Jurassic Park movie franchise is the strongest predictor of contemporary public interest, surpassing biological traits such as size or trophic level. Larger, faunivore genera described earlier, and especially those featured in the Jurassic Park franchise, attract disproportionate public interest, whereas herbivores, omnivores and Mid‑Jurassic taxa receive comparatively less attention. These findings demonstrate that cultural representation can sometimes override biological disadvantages, concentrating visibility on a narrow subset of charismatic taxa. Recognizing this ‘blockbuster effect’ provides lessons for contemporary conservation communication: by leveraging narrative-driven media, scientists and practitioners can generate cultural visibility and mitigate the decline of collective attention and memory for less charismatic species.

Sauropod dinosaurs achieved unprecedented terrestrial gigantism, raising questions about the biomechanical limits of bone under extreme gravitational loads. We estimated static gravitational pressures (Pg) on appendicular cortical bone in neosauropods, including diplodocoids, brachiosaurids, and titanosaurs. We did this by measuring cortical thickness, estimating body masses, and calculating pressures on limb bones. We compared the results with the theoretical fracture thresholds of composite cortical bone (~150–200 MPa) and pure crystalline hydroxyapatite (~1000 MPa). In the largest specimens, Pg remained two orders of magnitude below the compressive strength of hydroxyapatite. These estimates are a conservative lower bound because they assume simultaneous four‐limb support. They are also substantially lower (>15 MPa) than the functional failure threshold of composite cortical bone. Dynamic behaviors raise these values: during slow locomotion, a single hindlimb may briefly support the entire hindquarter load, and the weight distribution between fore‐ and hindlimbs varies markedly with center‐of‐mass position. Even so, rearing on the hindlimbs in the largest titanosaurs (>25 metric tons) would remain within safe limits defined by composite‐bone failure thresholds. Neosauropod lineages show distinct biomechanical strategies. Diplodocoids kept a posteriorly positioned center of mass compatible with facultative bipedal rearing. Brachiosaurids shifted it cranially through neck and forelimb hypertrophy. Titanosaurs reached extreme sizes through enhanced secondary bone remodeling and extensive postcranial pneumatization. Cortical thickening is consistently associated with increasing gravitational loads across Neosauropoda. However, this static model does not test whether it was the primary evolutionary response, compared with other strategies such as trabecular densification and postcranial pneumaticity.

In 2020, a group of Brazilian female paleontologists from various universities and public institutions conducted the study “Brazilian Paleontology Gender Profile,” whose main objective was to assess the current demographic diversity of Brazilian paleontologists and how the role of women has evolved throughout the history of the Brazilian Society of Paleontology. Initially, the project aimed to determine the number of professionals working in Paleontology and their demographic distribution in the country. However, our research expanded, encompassing race, Indigenous representation, LGBTQIAP+ data, parenthood, harassment, and gender violence. The present work presents the first installment of three sets of unpublished data, shedding light on gender issues and how to combat gender discrimination through the proposal of affirmative action policies that could be taken within the Brazilian Society of Paleontology and other scientific associations in South America. Keywords: gender profile, women in science, gender biases.

Pterosaur dental biology remains poorly understood despite its importance for comprehending feeding strategies and flight adaptations. Here, we present the first comprehensive histological analysis of an ornithocheiriform pterosaur tooth from the Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation (Santana Group, Northeast Brazil). Specimen LPP‐UFRN 3002 exhibits thin prismless enamel (61 μm thickness), orthodentine with dense tubule networks, and 82 von Ebner lines indicating rapid tooth formation. Quantitative comparison across major clades of extinct reptiles reveals that pterosaurs demonstrate the most accelerated tooth development among archosauriforms, with formation times of 54–82 lines compared to 185–933 lines in non‐avialan dinosaurs, 50–283 lines in crocodyliforms, and 342–426 lines in mosasaurs. The rapid tooth development and thin enamel documented in ornithocheiriform pterosaurs could enable the maintenance of lightweight skulls, essential for powered flight, while ensuring continuous replacement for effective prey capture. The specimen preserves microstructural detail despite diagenetic calcite permineralization and partial focalized substitution, a characteristic of the Crato Formation carbonate environment. These findings demonstrate that ornithocheiriform pterosaurs evolved a unique dental strategy, prioritizing replacement efficiency over individual tooth durability, which contrasts with the extended formation times characteristic of large‐bodied mosasaurs and herbivorous dinosaurs. This research establishes dental histology as critical for understanding pterosaur paleobiology and provides quantitative data for reconstructing ecosystem dynamics throughout the Mesozoic.

The Santana Group in Northeast Brazil has yielded a remarkable discovery: the first filter-feeding pterosaur from the tropics, named Bakiribu waridza gen. et sp. nov. This new taxon provides key insights into the evolutionary history and ecological diversity of Ctenochasmatidae, a clade known for its specialized feeding adaptations. Bakiribu exhibits extremely elongated jaws and dense, brush-like tooth rows, similar to Pterodaustro but distinct in tooth cross-section and spacing. Paleohistological analysis of the teeth revealed well-preserved dentine and pulp cavities. Phylogenetic analysis recovers Bakiribu as the sister taxon to Pterodaustro, forming a clade more closely related to Ctenochasma than to Gegepterus, which is reinterpreted as a non-ctenochasmatine. Regarding some specific traits such as tooth density, elongation, and count, Bakiribu is intermediate between Ctenochasma and Pterodaustro, thus partially bridging a key evolutionary gap within Ctenochasmatinae. Taphonomic features support the interpretation of the fossil assemblage as a regurgitalite. This discovery brings crucial data for understanding biogeographic dispersal and ecological specialization within Ctenochasmatinae during the Early Cretaceous, and offers rare evidence of predator-prey interactions in the Romualdo Formation paleoecosystem. Together, these findings further underscore the importance of the Araripe Basin as a window into the Early Cretaceous biodiversity.

Dinosaurs evolved a unique respiratory system with air sacs that contributed to their evolutionary success. Postcranial skeletal pneumaticity (PSP) has been used to infer the presence of air sac systems in some fossil archosaurs. While unambiguous evidence of PSP is well documented in pterosaurs and post‐Carnian saurischians, it remains absent within Ornithischia, challenging phylogenetic predictions. We used computed tomography to examine the internal vertebral microanatomy of three Huallasaurus australis specimens, a saurolophine hadrosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina. The internal structure reveals a relatively dense trabecular architecture lacking evidence of invasive pneumaticity across the centra, neural arches, and neural spines, contrasting with the condition in post‐Carnian saurischians. The internal vertebral pattern of Huallasaurus resembles that of silesaurs more than other apneumatic archosauriforms. These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that invasive air sac diverticula did not evolve in Ornithischia and align with the previously proposed “pelvic bellows” ventilation model for the group. The internal vertebral architecture in this hadrosaur shows superficial similarities to the trabecular structure seen in some large mammals, although functional equivalence remains speculative. The absence of invasive air sacs in Huallasaurus , combined with dense trabecular matrix and thin cortical walls, may have supported large body sizes or accommodated intraosseous fat reserves, though this requires further testing. This stock of fatty tissues could have provided energy for these hadrosaurs during regional migration, as observed in modern migratory mammals.