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 information from living sponges, as well as chemical signals from ancient rocks, ...

Parasites of Fossil Vertebrates: What We Know and What can We Expect from the Fossil Record? / Tommy L. F. Leung -- Fossil Record of Viruses, Parasitic Bacteria and Parasitic Protozoa / George Poinar ...

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

Jawbones and other remains, similar to specimens found in Europe, were dated to 773,000 years and help close a gap in ...

Chapter 1. The fossil record of parasitism: Its extent and taphonomic constraints -- Chapter 2. Importance of data on fossil symbioses for parasite-host evolution -- Chapter 3. Biodiversity and ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Humanity’s understanding of life was forever altered when ...

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 into ...

Beginning with a recently discovered 47-million-year-old primate fossil, Switek effectively and eloquently demonstrates the exponential increase in fossils that have been found since Darwin first ...

If you’ve always thought echidnas and platypuses were distant cousins who went their separate ways on land and water, think again. A single fossilized arm bone, found in a remote corner of ...

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

The early part of the twentieth century saw evolutionary theory embattled by disagreements over Darwin's emphasis on natural selection. The then-newly rediscovered work of Gregor Mendel in the ...