In a study based in Washington, a group of researchers determined that the male ghost shark's forehead appendage, called a ...

A major fossil discovery in Canada sheds new light on the development of the earliest vertebrates, including the origin of jaws, the first time this feature has been seen so early in the fossil record ...

Eel movement involves stretch and pressure signals, enabling swimming, crawling, and recovery after spinal injury.

Bargibant’s pygmy seahorses look almost exactly like the gorgonian corals they live in, thanks in part to their unusually ...

From genetics alone, scientists can now predict how long any of myriad different creatures can live. The “lifespan clock” estimates vertebrate animals’ (those with a backbone) longevity — including ...

A fang-like tooth on double upper lips, spiny teeth on the tongue and a pulley-like mechanism to move the tongue backwards and forwards -- this bizarre bite belongs to a conodont and, thanks to a ...

A stunningly preserved, soft-bodied fish that is more than 500 million years old could be the ancestor of almost all living vertebrates. The fossilized fish, called Metaspriggina, sports ...

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 ...

The ongoing sixth mass species extinction is the result of the destruction of component populations leading to eventual extirpation of entire species. Populations and species extinctions have severe ...

Twenty years ago, nearly all the world’s nations agreed to significantly reduce the loss of biodiversity by 2010. (The United States signed the accord but, like other treaties, the Senate has not ...

Earth’s earliest land-walking vertebrates didn’t paddle about in freshwater lakes or rivers. Instead, these four-footed creatures, which appeared about 375 million years ago, lived in the brackish ...