For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. Now some are ...

To understand the origins of multicelled life, researchers are studying a motley assortment of simpler animal relatives. The commonalities they’re unearthing offer a trove of clues about our mutual ...

We humans have long viewed ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution. People label other species as “primitive” or “ancient” and use terms like “higher” and “lower” animals. This anthropocentric ...

An artist’s impression depicts Kryoryctes at Dinosaur Cove in Australia. New research supports the hypothesis that Kryoryctes is a common ancestor of both the platypus and echidna. - Peter Schouten ...

A microorganism whose evolutionary roots can be traced to the era of the first multicellular animals may provide a glimpse of how single-celled organisms made a critical evolutionary leap. In ...

In five cases where vertebrates evolved monogamy, the same changes in gene expression occurred each time. In many non-monogamous species, females provide all or most of the offspring care. In ...

Scientists have been mystified as to why animals are missing in much of the fossil record; Researchers have developed a new method to determine if animals really were absent during certain geological ...

Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be. Chromosomes, the bundles of DNA that star in the mitotic ballet ...

The raw material for evolution is much more abundant in wild animals than we previously believed, according to new research. The raw material for evolution is much more abundant in wild animals than ...

"This book was originally published as an issue of Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society B; Biological sciences (volume 363; number 1496) but has been materially changed and updated"--Title ...