The PaleoAngola Project is a scientific programme in collaboration between various international institutions in order to research and promote the Paleontology of Angola. The results of fieldwork in Cretaceous sites have been extraordinarily spectacular, with the discovery of the first dinosaur of Angola, dating from the Late Cretaceous, and mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, ammonites and fossil turtles. Besides the scientific objectives, we aim to create a strong and lasting institutional and scientific collaboration that has a multiplier effect in Angolan academia.

O Projecto PaleoAngola é um programa científico entre várias instituições internacionais com o objectivo de investigar e dar a conhecer a Paleontologia de Angola. Os resultados de missões nos terrenos do Cretácico foram surpreendentes, com a descoberta do primeiro dinossauro de Angola, datado do Cretácico Superior, além de vestígios de mosassauros, plesiossauros, amonites e tartarugas fósseis. Além dos objectivos científicos, é nosso intuito criar uma forte e duradoura colaboração científica e institucional que tenha efeitos multiplicadores no meio académico angolano.

 

Latest News

  • Fossil relatives of Pygmy Right Whales from Angola

ProjectoPaleoAngola has collected bones of Miocene and Pliocene whales including two skulls. Comparisons with modern and fossil

whales were made at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History.


 

To facilitate further comparisons the fossils and the skull of USNM 550146, belonging to the pygmy right whale (Caperea marginata),

were surface scanned, and are depicted here in an animation.


The USNM skull of Caperea is one of only two in North American museums, and the Angolan specimens are the only fossils of the

pygmy right whale family known from Africa.


One of the Angolan skulls has two fossil fish preserved in its blowhole.

Initial results  of this study were presented by John Graf at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting and at the North American

Paleontological Convention. See the field blog for the discovery and collection of these specimens

 

PaleoAngola