Jorge Herrera-Flores

University of Bristol | UB · Faculty of Science

The tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus, known from 32 small islands around New Zealand, has often been noted as a classic ‘living fossil’ because of its apparently close resemblance to its Mesozoic forebears and because of a long, low-diversity history. This designation has been disputed because of the wide diversity of Mesozoic forms and because of deri...

Squamates (lizards and snakes) are highly successful modern vertebrates, with over 10 000 species. Squamates have a long history, dating back to at least 240 million years ago (Ma), and showing increasing species richness in the Late Cretaceous (84 Ma) and Early Palaeogene (66–55 Ma). We confirm that the major expansion of dietary functional morpho...

Biodiversity today is uneven, with equally ancient sister groups containing few or many species. It has often been assumed that high biodiversity indicates fast evolution, and yet in a classic work in 1944 George Simpson suggested that fast evolution might generate instability and extinction, and that slow evolution led to high biodiversity. Here w...

Los fósiles son restos de organismos que vivieron en tiempos geológicos pasados y que cuentan con una antigüedad de por lo menos 10 mil años, pero ¿conoces cuáles son los fósiles más importantes del Estado de Puebla? Esta obra te acompaña a un recorrido a través de la historia geológica de Puebla y de sus sitios fosilíferos más relevantes (San Salv...

We report a natural cast of the left manus of an indeterminate temnospondyl, found in an outcrop of the Matzitzi Formation (Upper Permian) in the northwestern region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. This ichnite is the first record of temnospondyls for the country, as well as the southernmost record of this group in North America; additionally, this...

Tlayúa Quarry is an outstanding Early Cretaceous fossil site in Mexico characterized by the beauty and exceptional preservation of its fossils, including fishes, invertebrates and reptiles. For over four decades, Tlayúa Quarry has been the subject of numerous paleontological studies, being considered one of the most important fossil sites in North...

Se habla de tres historias relacionadas con dinosaurios ocurridas a lo largo del siglo XX y principios del siglo XXI en la Ciudad de México, las cuales son notables por estar estrechamente ligadas con el impulso de los museos de historia natural, el desarrollo de la paleontología de dinosaurios y la ingeniería robótica en México.

Se reporta la extinción de una población relicta de la lagartija Aspidoscelis costatus como consecuencia de la destrucción de su hábitat tras la remodelación de la Zona Histórica de Los Fuertes en el año 2012 en la Ciudad de Puebla, México.

We reexamine and redescribe the type specimens and other associated material of the Late Jurassic rhynchocephalian Opisthias rarus, from Quarry 9 of the Morrison Formation. We rediscover and describe a fragment of rock matrix belonging to the holotype that is presented for the first time, and we also comment on undescribed material from Quarry 9 th...

The squamates (lizards, snakes, and relatives) today comprise more than 10,000 species, and yet their sister group, the Rhynchocephalia, is represented by a single species today, the tuatara. The explosion in squamate diversity has been tracked back to the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution, 100 million years ago (Ma), the time when flowering plants...

Reportamos un caso inusual de momificación natural en un espécimen de Rhinella horribilis colectado hace más de treinta años en Ignacio Romero Vargas al norponiente de la ciudad de Puebla, México. El espécimen momificado provee importante información sobre un taxón anteriormente no registrado para la herpetofauna del municipio de Puebla, del que to...

I report an unusual case of predation of G. flavomarginatus, presumably by a medium-sized carnivorous mammal, during a field course at the Laboratorio del Desierto of the Instituto de Ecología in the Reserva de la Biósfera de Mapimí in Durango, México.

The Late Triassic rhynchocephalian Clevosaurus latidens Fraser, 1993 is known from the fissure deposits of Cromhall Quarry, England. Many studies have questioned its referral to the genus Clevosaurus Swinton, 1939 and some phylogenetic analyses suggest a close relationship with herbivorous rhynchocephalians. We re-examine the type specimens and ref...

Se describe y comenta material fósil de tortugas, procedente de San Buenaventura Nealtican, Puebla. Según sus características morfológicas es referido al género Trachemys, lo que representa el primer registro fósil de este género para el estado de Puebla, además de dar a conocer una nueva localidad con herpetofauna para el Pleistoceno de Puebla.