Animal life began in aquatic environments more than 600 million years ago. Around 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian ...

If you trace the animal family tree back through the fossil record, the trail usually goes cold about 539 million years ago.

Until now, there was a conflict in the field of paleontology. Genetic analysis of how fast traits mutated and evolved suggested that humans and starfish had their earliest common ancestor in the ...

Scientists have discovered which animal was the first to branch off from our collective common ancestor. For years, debate had raged over whether the first to diverge was the sea sponge or the comb ...

Newfound fossils from China suggest that complex animals were around millions of years earlier than thought, among them ...

A remarkable fossil discovery in southwest China is rewriting the story of how complex animal life began, showing that many key animal groups appeared millions of years earlier than scientists once ...

Learn how newly discovered Ediacaran fossils are pushing the origins of animals back millions of years before the Cambrian ...

Embryonic germ layers are the fundamental organizing principle in animal development. They provide the structural basis from which tissues and organs arise. During early embryogenesis, cells divide to ...

Animal life is extraordinarily diverse and complex, having colonised almost all environments on Earth – from hostile ...

Animals have always shared our planet, our homes, and sometimes even our emotions. While humans often see themselves as more intelligent beings, animals possess qualities that remind us of what truly ...