Projects

Along with Jimena Lois-Milevicich we look into the anatomy and evolution of the skull of cowbirds and other Icteridae, a group of neotropical songbirds, by means of quantitative approaches, including geometric morphometrics, cladisticts, and phylogenetic comparative methods.

Along with Guillermo Turazzini, Celeste Pérez-Ben, and other colleagues we study frog associations that inhabited the Pampas of Argentina over the last 10 million years. To do this, we first need to get a grasp on skeletal diversity of living Pampean frogs.

Pipids are odd-looking frogs with a highly aquatic lifestyle and a relatively rich fossil record. Along with different colleagues, I continue to explore pipid diversity and their skeletal evolution.

Along with Fernando Garberoglio and other colleagues we explore the Cretaceous snake diversity from Patagonia and their patterns of early morphological evolution and phylogenetic relationships.

Along with Ricardo De Mendoza we look into the evolution of the skeleton and body size in ducks and other waterfowl at a macroevolutionary scale, assessing the role that biotic and abiotic factors may have had in the timing and mode of morphological change.

Neobatrachians make up 97% of extant frogs, but their early history is still poorly documented. Along with different colleagues I continue to describe extinct neobatrachians from the Cretaceous and Paleogene of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru, inferring their phylogenetic relationships.

Along with Sebastián Apesteguía and other colleagues, we look into the extinct sphenodontian diversity in Patagonia, their phylogeny and morphological evolution. These are relatives of the New Zealand Tuatara, the only living sphenodontian.

Along with Guillermo Turazzini, Andrés Lires, Celeste Pérez-Ben, and other colleagues we explore the diversity and evolution of these postcranial elements in salientians (the total group that includes frogs). These elements have unique morphologies in frogs, which has often been interpreted as adaptations to a saltatory locomotion.

Along with Tomás Ventura we look into the evolution of the skull in true toads of the family Bufonidae, assessing the signals of body size, phylogeny, and geographic distribution, using 3D geometric morphometrics and phylogenetic comparative methods.

We conceptualize this project along with Jimena Lois-Milevicich. We aim to provide a unique and low-cost protocol to determine sex in songbirds. We already tested this protocol on jays, but we plan to test its efficiency on other neotropical species.