During these waves of mass extinction, most vertebrate survivors were confined to refugia, or isolated biodiversity hotspots ...

A study published in the Nature journal alters how the evolution of fish has been historically understood. Fossilized fish and other sea creatures have often been pivotal in new scientific discoveries ...

Some 445 million years ago, life on Earth was forever changed. During the geological blink of an eye, glaciers formed over ...

Earth, rocks, evolution, and fish : background information to understanding fish evolution -- Glorified swimming worms : the first fishes : origins of chordates and the first vertebrates -- Jawless ...

Whole skeleton of Dipterus, an extinct lungfish from the middle Devonian period. Specimen (UMMP 16140) from the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology. ANN ARBOR—If you're reading this sentence ...

It's not what you do, it's how readily you do it. Rapid evolutionary change might have more to do with how easily a key innovation can be gained or lost rather than with the innovation itself, ...

The biodiversity of the Earth’s oceans is disproportionately concentrated in coral reefs — the vibrant undersea ecosystems where thousands of known marine species reside. A new Yale-led study offers ...

(CNN) — Hundreds of millions of years ago, jawless fishes swam Earth’s seas, their brains protected on the outside by armored skin, and on the inside by plates made of cartilage. Scientists are still ...

Evolution has created some pretty crazy things, and the head of this fish is definitely one of them. The rockhead poacher (Bothragonus swanii) is small, armored, and shaped remarkably like a stone.

Why do you think giraffes have such long necks? It’s a question that has perplexed scientists for years. Do you think giraffes have long necks to reach food in high places? Maybe you are onto ...