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, ...

About 445 million years ago, Earth’s oceans turned into a danger zone. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, and shallow seas shrank fast.

New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered that vertebrates make higher numbers of different forms of ...

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

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 ...

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 ...