Researchers have shed new light on the features that enable tree-dwelling mammals to move effectively through their environments, providing insights into the evolution of the distinct upright postures ...

Animals from completely different branches of the tree of life, such as insects, worms and vertebrates, independently evolved similar genetic solutions to survive on land, according to a new study ...

NOTE: As of Jan. 9, 2026, the authors requested that the paper be retracted because of errors in the analysis. A reanalysis of the data will be posted at a later date. Biologists who study the ...

A human, an octopus, and a coral could hardly look more different—yet deep inside their cells, their chromosomes still carry recognizable pieces of a genome inherited from an animal ancestor that ...

Phylogenomic analysis harnesses genome-scale data sets to reconstruct the deep branches of the animal tree of life, resolving longstanding debates about the relationships among major lineages such as ...

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE AND NOTES -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- 1. Before Animals -- 2. Phylogenetics and the Base of the Animal Tree of Life -- 3. Ctenophora -- 4 ...