The most effective conservation strategies for protecting vertebrates on a global scale are those aimed at mitigating the effects of overexploitation, habitat loss and climate change, which are the ...

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

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

This particular species of pantylid (dubbed Tyrannoroter heberti after its discoverer) existed 307 million years ago and harbored some surprises within its tiny skull. Using a CT scan, researchers ...

New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered a crucial piece in the puzzle of how all animals with a spine—including all mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians—evolved. In a paper ...

Every mammal, every fish, every vertebrate (creatures that have a spine) has two eyes. It’s been that way for millions and ...

Biologists have considered nearly every major taxon of animals as the key starting point for the evolution of vertebrates. We survey these ideas, many of which are no longer tenable in the light of ...

My, what small teeth they had. A newfound treasure trove of ancient fish fossils unearthed in southern China is opening a window into the earliest history of jawed vertebrates — a group that ...

The cradle of vertebrate evolution was limited to a zone of shallow coastal waters, no more than 60 meters deep. In those waters, fish — the first vertebrates — appeared roughly 480 million years ago, ...

The vertebrate body plan emerged in concert with extensive changes to anterior chordate morphology, including assembly of a craniofacial skeleton, expansion of the anterior neuroepithelium into a ...