Three species that lived about 308 million years ago challenge the idea that the first land vertebrates underwent ...

What did the very first complex vertebrate brain look like? To find out, scientists turned to an unlikely time traveler: the ...

Researchers recently discovered that the sea lamprey, a modern representative of ancient jawless vertebrates, fights invading pathogens by generating up to 100 trillion unique receptors. These ...

Researchers have long assumed that a tube in the famous Pikaia fossil ran along the animal’s back. But a new study turned the fossil upside down. By Carl Zimmer Over the past 500 million years, ...

Scientists have long puzzled over the gap in the fossil record that would explain the evolution from invertebrates to vertebrates. Vertebrates, including fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, ...

"It took 10 people over a week just to find this one tiny 10-millimeter adult." ...

When we consider the very beginnings of life on Earth, we might envision giant dinosaurs stomping through ancient forests, or ...

Chinese scientists have for the first time mapped the entire brain of the primitive, fish-like lamprey by constructing a spatial single-cell atlas, offering an unprecedented view into the deep ...

A harlequin poison dart frog (Oophaga sylvatica) is pictured at the Tesoros de Colombia (Treasures of Colombia) sustainable farm in Nocaima, Cundinamarca department, Colombia, on July 9, 2024.

'Junk DNA' could hold the secret of the evolutionary origin of complex animals, according to new research. Vertebrates - animals such as humans that possess a backbone - are the most anatomically and ...