A genomic atlas of Nematostella vectensis reveals how primitive animals created multiple cell types millions of years ago, ...

Birds are the most diverse land vertebrate on the planet, and now scientists have constructed a complete evolutionary tree of the 11,000 or so known species. This data came from hundreds of studies ...

Sauropod dinosaurs, renowned for their immense size and distinctive body plan, represent one of the most successful groups of terrestrial herbivores in Earth's history. Emerging in the Early Jurassic ...

A groundbreaking study has traced the 66-million-year evolutionary history of primates and overturned conventional thought that our ancestors originally inhabited warm tropical forests. Using advanced ...

Bears look like textbook mammals, but hidden in their evolutionary history are two dramatic departures from the standard blueprint of growth and adaptation. For the first time, scientists have ...

The story of primates is a tale of incredible variety and ancient roots, told through the lens of science, DNA, and time itself. These creatures, ranging from massive gorillas to tiny mouse lemurs, ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Fossil discoveries unlock chapters of our planet’s storied ...

The Crinoidea, a class of marine echinoderms, have long captivated palaeontologists as one of the most enduring and diverse components of the marine fossil record. Their evolutionary history spans ...

Evidence is mounting that the evolution of our species is more convoluted than we imagined — more like a braided stream than a branching tree. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn ...

Scientists uncovered a 149-million-year-old bird fossil in southeastern China with unexpectedly modern traits they believe could rewrite the evolutionary history of birds. The recently discovered ...

New research offers insight into the evolutionary history of amylase genes, which are key to our ability to eat and digest starchy food. A study found that human ancestors started carrying multiple ...

Human evolution is often told as a tidy story of adaptation, yet some of our most familiar body parts still defy straightforward explanation. From the jut of the human chin to the curve of the outer ...