Luis Alejandro Blanco Calvo

Alejandro Blanco is a zoologist and vertebrate paleontologist specializing in the taxonomic and phylogenetic study of crocodiles, reptiles, amphibians, and extinct fish. His doctoral thesis (2017, Autonomous University of Barcelona), focused on the analysis of vertebrate microfossil diversity from the Tremp Formation (Maastrichtian, Cretaceous), provided new data on the evolution of late Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems in northeastern Iberia. He has described several new crocodile species and one ray species. He is the author of more than twenty articles in prestigious international scientific journals.

He has obtained various research contracts from the Xunta de Galicia and national funding bodies (JdlC, RyC), and has extensive international experience. He has worked with renowned zoological and paleontological collections, such as the Queensland Museum (Brisbane, Australia) and the Natural History Museum (London, UK), among others, to gather data for his research.

Currently, his research focuses on analyzing the skeletal morphology of both extant and extinct crocodiles using digitization, biomechanical, and geometric morphometric techniques. To achieve this, he employs cutting-edge tools that allow him to create virtual reconstructions of fossil and extant remains for computational studies.