Mauricio's fascination with prehistoric life began when he was a child living in Valladolid, Spain. He was impressed by the work of paleoart masters Rudolph Zallinger, Charles Knight and Zdenek Burian, which appeared in books and trading cards. Later, he studied Fine Arts while living in Caracas, and for several years he painted surrealist and fantastic subjects. In the late 1980s he settled in Madrid and started his career as a professional paleontological artist.

One of his earliest commissions was to paint a series of murals depicting life in the Tertiary for the Sabadell Museum in Spain. Since then, he has created artwork for museum exhibits worldwide, including The Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid, the Florida Museum of Natural History or the American Museum of Natural History . He has co-authored and illustrated numerous books, including 'The Big Cats and Their Fossils Relatives', 'Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids' and 'Evolving Eden'. He has illustrated and authored many magazine articles, and collaborated with the BBC and Discovery Channel in developing documentary films including 'Wild New World', 'Sabretooth' and 'Walking with Beasts'. The results of his research on the anatomy of fossil vertebrates have been published in academic journals including the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the Journal of Human Evolution.and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Mauricio is currently exploring the applications of computer graphic imaging and animation to paleoart. He lives in Madrid with his wife Puri and his son Miguel.