New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered a crucial piece in the puzzle of how all animals with a ...

Many spine-bearing creatures, or vertebrates, have a curious bit of tissue deep in their brains called the pineal gland. It ...

Scientists analyzing 443-million-year-old Scottish fossils have uncovered the early evidence that some of the first groups of vertebrates possessed surprisingly advanced eyes and traces of bone, ...

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

A fish thought to be evolution’s time capsule just surprised scientists. A detailed dissection of the coelacanth — a 400-million-year-old species often called a “living fossil” — revealed that key ...

Researchers report February 15 in the journal Cell that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin—and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic ...

New fossil evidence from China suggests that some of our vertebrate ancestors had four eyes. The study, published in Nature, ...

(CNN) — Hundreds of millions of years ago, jawless fishes swam Earth’s seas, their brains protected on the outside by armored skin, and on the inside by plates made of cartilage. Scientists are still ...

Early jawless fish were likely to have used bony projections surrounding their mouths to modify the mouth's shape while they collected food. Experts have used CT scanning techniques to build up the ...

In five cases where vertebrates evolved monogamy, the same changes in gene expression occurred each time. In many non-monogamous species, females provide all or most of the offspring care. In ...

Corticoid receptors, encompassing both glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors, are pivotal to the regulation of physiological processes across vertebrates. These receptors have evolved through ...