Humans are one of 60,000 species that share a 500 million year old common ancestor. This creature was the ancestor of almost every vertebrate species, but it had a sixth sense that most of its ...

Whole-genome duplications are rare evolutionary events in which all the chromosomes and genes of a species are doubled. This supplies new genetic material to the gene pool and can provide an ...

An illustration of a four-eyed myllokunmingid, a jawless fish that lived more than 500 million years ago Xiangtong Lei and Sihang Zhang Many spine-bearing creatures, or vertebrates, have a curious bit ...

Just seven millimeters long, flea toads are among the smallest vertebrates on Earth. Despite their diminutive size, their organs and functions hardly differ from animals a thousand times larger. While ...

Within every muscle of every living species with a backbone, a protein called myosin tugs on a partner protein to generate a ...

The researchers from the HiLIFE Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki compared two central bearded dragon lizards (Pogona vitticeps): a normal one and a mutant with no body scales. They ...

The researchers from the HiLIFE Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki compared two central bearded dragon lizards (Pogona vitticeps): a normal one and a mutant with no body scales. They ...

Adaptive immunity is a powerful defense mechanism in vertebrates. A finely tuned interplay of different cell types provides a pathogen-specific immune response to eliminate for example bacteria and ...

Scales, spines, feathers and hair are examples of vertebrate skin appendages, which constitute a remarkably diverse group of micro-organs. Despite their natural multitude of forms, these appendages ...

A 319-million-year-old fossilised fish has revealed the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain, according to scientists. The preserved creature, pulled from a coal mine in England more ...