Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Humanity’s understanding of life was forever altered when ...

(CNN) — When a fossil preserves an animal’s complete body in a death pose, seeing it is observing a snapshot in time. Several such fossils exist for Archaeopteryx — the earliest known bird — and now, ...

(CNN) — When a fossil preserves an animal’s complete body in a death pose, seeing it is observing a snapshot in time. Several such fossils exist for Archaeopteryx — the earliest known bird — and now, ...

The earliest feathered dinosaurs may have evolved their bird-like features while still retaining lizard-like scales on other parts of their body. This theory is based on the discovery of a fossilized ...

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, ...

The pterosaurs are extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside their close relatives, the dinosaurs. The largest of these reached 10 m in wingspan, but early forms were generally limited to around 2 ...

The fossil record of squamates, encompassing both lizards and snakes, provides an intricate account of evolutionary innovation over millions of years. Fossils elucidate key morphological transitions, ...

A research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has identified a fossil acanthocephalan, Juracanthocephalus, from the 160-million-year-old ...

Coelacanths, often termed “living fossils”, represent an extraordinary lineage of lobe‐finned fishes with a fossil record spanning from the Devonian to the present. Their evolutionary history is ...

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