Scientists have uncovered an unexpected genetic shift that may explain how animals with backbones first emerged and became so diverse.

Learn how increased protein diversity in signaling genes may have helped drive the shift from invertebrates to vertebrates, ...

Every mammal, every fish, every vertebrate (creatures that have a spine) has two eyes. It’s been that way for millions and ...

New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered a crucial piece in the puzzle of how all animals with a spine—including all mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians—evolved. In a paper ...

New fossil evidence from China suggests that some of our vertebrate ancestors had four eyes. The study, published in Nature, takes a closer look at a structure found in multiple 518 million-year-old ...

Life on our home planet dates back to hundreds of millions of years before the arrival of the dinosaurs. Among the most ...

Protecting large swaths of Earth's land can help stem the tide of biodiversity loss -- especially when those protected areas are in less disturbed landscapes and in countries with effective national ...

Charles Darwin proposed that evolution is driven by gradual variations in organisms that have a survival advantage in a changing environment. But University of Maryland evolutionary biologist Karen ...