New research shows that the earliest sponges were soft bodied and lacked skeletons, explaining why their oldest fossils are ...

Sponges may be ancient, but their timeline has been murky. New research suggests the earliest sponges were soft and ...

Scientists discovered some of the oldest bony fish fossils in China. The fossils explain the early history of animals with backbones.

An artist’s impression depicts Kryoryctes at Dinosaur Cove in Australia. New research supports the hypothesis that Kryoryctes is a common ancestor of both the platypus and echidna. - Peter Schouten ...

In a discovery that reshapes our understanding of life’s origins, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found new evidence suggesting that the first animals on Earth were ...

The Cambrian Explosion in which life on Earth underwent massive diversification was likely triggered by eccentricities in Earth’s orbit around our Sun. Or so say the authors of a new paper just ...

Prehistoric animals are often pictured as distant fossils, yet a surprising number of species still walk, swim, and crawl ...

The earliest sponges to live on the earth were soft and skeletonless pioneers - rewriting the story of the origin of animal ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The story of two of ...

(CNN) — The story of two of the strangest animals on the planet just got a little stranger, thanks to clues revealed by a lone fossil specimen that scientists now say represents a long-extinct ...