A groundbreaking DNA study bridges a century-old gap in millipede science, tracking the evolution of the ancient critters.

Our blue planet is home to countless creatures, some well-known, others still shrouded in mystery. From tiny tardigrades to massive blue whales, the diversity of life today reflects billions of years ...

Earth’s earliest animals may have held evolution back because they reproduced asexually, creating low-competition communities ...

Scientists suggest Earth's earliest animals reproduced asexually, slowing evolution and delaying the biodiversity boom that ...

Fossils from some of the oldest-known animals on Earth, dating from 574 million years ago (Ediacaran period), suggest that cloning, not competition, dominated the Ediacaran seas, slowing evolution ...

The amazing survival strategies of polar marine creatures might help to explain how the first animals on Earth could have evolved earlier than the oldest fossils suggest, according to new research.

Scientists have peered inside the skull of a 380-million-year-old Antarctic fish that was closely related to the first animals to walk on land, revealing surprising clues about how life began its move ...

Ancient animal history is extremely difficult to reconstruct, for a number of reasons. Some of the earliest creatures in existence were soft-bodied and microscopic, leaving behind very little evidence ...

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with ...