A stunningly preserved, soft-bodied fish that is more than 500 million years old could be the ancestor of almost all living vertebrates. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad ...

Researchers recently discovered that the sea lamprey, a modern representative of ancient jawless vertebrates, fights invading pathogens by generating up to 100 trillion unique receptors. These ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

Amphibians are in the worst shape of any vertebrate group. The second Global Amphibian Assessment, published in 2023, found ...

'Junk DNA' could hold the secret of the evolutionary origin of complex animals, according to new research. Vertebrates - animals such as humans that possess a backbone - are the most anatomically and ...

Those of you who took high school biology may remember the lancelet, also known as the amphioxus. Its simplified body plan is notable for containing a number of features that it shares in common with ...

It may be a bias left over from the long time I've spent studying it, but the development of the vertebrate spinal column has always struck me as elegant. Two signaling centers on the top and bottom ...

Researchers have long assumed that a tube in the famous Pikaia fossil ran along the animal’s back. But a new study turned the fossil upside down. By Carl Zimmer Over the past 500 million years, ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Note to readers: In the scratch-and-sniff version of this article, you will smell rotting hagfish ...

Charles Darwin proposed that evolution is driven by gradual variations in organisms that have a survival advantage in a changing environment. But University of Maryland evolutionary biologist Karen ...

A harlequin poison dart frog (Oophaga sylvatica) is pictured at the Tesoros de Colombia (Treasures of Colombia) sustainable farm in Nocaima, Cundinamarca department, Colombia, on July 9, 2024.