New research shows that the earliest sponges were soft bodied and lacked skeletons, explaining why their oldest fossils are ...

A visualization of Tiktaalik roseae, an extinct aquatic animal with fossils that shed light on the evolution of land animals from marine animals millions of years ago. Nobu Tamura via Wikimedia ...

Scientists discover webbed feet in land animals, challenging common assumptions. This trait, initially for swimming, also ...

A series of whole genome and gene duplication events that go back hundreds of millions of years have laid the foundations for tissue-specific gene expression, according to a new study. The 'copy-paste ...

Fast-moving animals process visual information at higher speeds, reshaping how they hunt, escape predators, and experience time.

This article was originally featured on High Country News. Increasing frequent and intense fires are shaping how species change, according to a paper published last year in the journal Trends in ...

Embryonic germ layers are the fundamental organizing principle in animal development. They provide the structural basis from which tissues and organs arise. During early embryogenesis, cells divide to ...

Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) at the University of Oxford have uncovered a clue that may help to explain why the earliest evidence of complex ...

700 million years ago, a remarkable creature emerged for the first time. Though it may not have been much to look at by today’s standards, the animal had a front and a back, a top and a bottom. This ...