By Will Dunham Feb 10 (Reuters) - Scientists have unearthed in Canada's province of Nova Scotia the skull of a creature dating to about 307 million years ago that is one of the oldest-known ...

A new study focused on cryptic species—animals that look the same but are genetically different—found that they’re more widespread among vertebrates than we previously thought.

There may be twice as many vertebrates on the planet as previous estimates claimed, according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. That's ...

Scientists have uncovered an unexpected genetic shift that may explain how animals with backbones first emerged and became so diverse.

The earliest ancestors of all backboned animals, including humans, may have viewed the world with four eyes, not just two.

Fossils of the prehistoric fish genus myllokunmingiid, more than 518 million years old, reveal that early vertebrates may ...

Hundreds of millions of years ago, the first animals to crawl onto land were strict meat-eaters, even as plants had already taken over the landscape. Now scientists have uncovered a ...

“ Tyrannoroter is the earliest and most complete vertebrate land herbivore to show adaptations that could process high-fiber ...

Scientists found a 307 million-year-old fossil, Tyrannoroter heberti, revealing one of the earliest known land vertebrates ...

Learn how a second pair of eyes helped this 518-million-year-old fish evade predators.

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto ...