These animals look all wrong. Not wrong like broken, wrong like they belong to a different Earth version. The frilled shark ...

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 ...

Around half a billion years ago, life on Earth went through a rapid transformation, diversifying into almost all of the major animal groups we see today. How and why the Cambrian explosion occurred ...

Researchers have identified a tiny roundworm living in the Great Salt Lake that represents a species new to science, and possibly more, expanding the known life able to survive the lake’s extreme ...

It should be known that not every animal has eyes. Most animal species (especially invertebrates like nematodes, annelids, flatworms, sponges, etc.) do not have eyes. Estimates suggest only about ...

A sweeping analysis of the “tree of life” finds that most living species belong to a relatively small number of lineages that diversified unusually quickly. Across plants, animals, and other kingdoms, ...

Biologists in the US have shown for the first time that global biodiversity is concentrated within a few disproportionately large groups with exceptional rates of evolutionary diversification. This ...

A new study by Prof. Ariel Chipman of The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem provides a novel model for understanding the development and evolution of ...

Cockroaches that catch a ride on ants. Grasshoppers that climb aboard sheep. Hitchhiking animals are more common than you think. A classic example of phoresy, the remora uses a modified fin that ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Here's why Dickinsonia challenges our previously held ...

As a general rule, most people want to avoid viruses, which are at the root of illnesses like colds, the flu, chickenpox and many a stomach bug. But what about a virus that doesn’t make people sick — ...