Life began on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago, but the history of humans and other vertebrates accounts for only a fraction of this timescale. Chordates (a group that includes vertebrates) and ...

Discover the latest articles and news in related subjects. The fossil record offers unique and crucial insight into many important episodes in the evolution of life, and allows reconstruction of the ...

Lancelets, or amphioxus, are small worm-like marine animals that spend most of their lives buried in the sea floor, filter-feeding through jawless, ciliated mouths. The vertebrate affinities of these ...

The Middle Cambrian chordate known as Pikaia gracilens was once thought to be humanity’s earliest known ancestor, and the earliest known member of the phylum Chordata. Now, a new study flips this ...

A new study led by researchers of the University of Barcelona and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, proves once more that evolution ...