Charles Darwin worried that the fossil record looked strangely abrupt, with complex animals appearing in a geological instant ...

Sponges are among Earth's most ancient animals, but exactly when they evolved has long puzzled scientists. Genetic ...

A new study theorizes that evolution ticks at different speeds, especially when a big group of organisms first appears.

About 445 million years ago, Earth nearly wiped out life in the oceans. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, ...

The oldest fossilised remains of complex animals appear suddenly in the fossil record, and as if from nowhere, in rocks that ...

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

Human fossils uncovered in a cave at the Thomas I quarry near Casablanca are offering fresh insight into a critical phase of ...

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

The fossil record of baleen whales (Mysticeti) offers a window into one of the most dramatic evolutionary transitions among mammals. Early cetaceans evolved from terrestrial artiodactyl ancestors ...

The earliest feathered dinosaurs may have evolved their bird-like features while still retaining lizard-like scales on other parts of their body. This theory is based on the discovery of a fossilized ...