A new study changes what we know about one of nature’s most enigmatic animals.
Articles on Vertebrates
Displaying 1 - 20 of 30 articles
The newly discovered fish fossil fills a key gap in our understanding of the evolution of vertebrate diversity.
A newly discovered species of ancient predatory fish in Nova Scotia sheds light on how early ray-finned fish evolved new ways to feed.
For 135 years, there’s been just a single species belonging to this group. Now, a second has been discovered in western Queensland.
The neck’s vitality and vulnerability are rooted in a quirky evolutionary history.
Fossilized skin belonging to an amniote was recently discovered. The skin was so well-preserved, that its cellular structures could be identified.
What paleontologists had believed to be spiny fins turned out to be elongated jaws. New examination of fossils that were 365 million years old revealed a fish with a remarkable lower jaw.
There’s no single reason many Asian animals spread to Australia but few went the other way – but climate, geography and the slow drift of tectonic plates all played a role.
Giraffes are the latest animals to show they can solve tasks using statistical reasoning – and the only one to do this with a small brain relative to body size.
Some animals appear to use a ‘parliament’ of genes to determine sex. But a closer look reveals these are the exception rather than the rule.
Spectacular finds of the world’s oldest jawed fishes from China push back the origins of jaws and teeth, and suggest how limbs might have evolved.
The findings come from placoderm fish fossils found in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. This extinct order of fish represents some of our earliest jawed ancestors.
Slow progress may be better than none at all for animals living in the UK.
Hard and strong, or bendy and flexible? A cartilaginous skeleton provides advantages in the ocean, but wouldn’t stand up to life on land.
Our genomes are built from the tiny chromosomes of a small spineless creature that lived 684 million years ago.
While we know that most chameleons have such a prehensile tail, it’s not yet clear how it works and what makes it simultaneously so flexible and strong.
These surfaces are of profound scientific, cultural, heritage, environmental, and aesthetic importance. Unfortunately, they are threatened - by graffiti.
Scientists used to believe that a group containing starfish and sea urchin were the closest relatives of vertebrates like humans. But new research challenges this idea.
Since the 19th century, biologists have treated the larvae of lampreys as a relic of evolutionary ancestry that could potentially give clues about vertebrate origins. Now fossils overturn that view.
The three-toed skink can give birth to live young and lay eggs in the same pregnancy. What can this little critter teach us about the evolution of live birth?
Top contributors
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Emeritus Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Jenny Graves is a Friend of The Conversation.
Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Vice Chancellor's Fellow, La Trobe University
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Associate Professor, James Cook University
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Research Associate in the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University
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Lecturer, Macquarie University
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Assistant Professor in Palaeontology, Trinity College Dublin
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Research Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University
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CSIRO
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Palaeontologist, Albany Museum (supported by the Millennium Trust and the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences, the NRF and the NSCF), Rhodes University
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Research group leader, Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Senior researcher, Instituut Biologie Leiden, Leiden University
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Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, UCL
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PIO, Florida International University
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Researcher, Evolutionary Biology, University of Zurich
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Professor, Curator of the Palaentological Museum, University of Zurich
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Lab Head-Developmental Epigenomics and Senior Research Fellow, Garvan Institute