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, ...

A team of scientists from the University of Manchester have uncovered some of the earliest evidence of advanced, camera-like ...

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 ...

The fossilized skull of Coccocephalus wildi, an early ray-finned fish that swam in an estuary 319 million years ago. The fish is facing to the right, with the jaws visible in the lower right portion ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

March 10 (UPI) --Fossil evidence of Earth's earliest vertebrates is sparse, but many scientists agree that a model for the ancestors of the all living vertebrates can still be found in the coastal and ...