(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 ...

Since time immemorial, humankind has wondered about its lineage: where it came from and how it got here. Modern science has ...

Hundreds of millions of years ago, the first animals to crawl onto land were strict meat-eaters, even as plants had already taken over the landscape. Now scientists have uncovered a ...

A chunky, squat creature that roamed Earth 307 million years ago is helping scientists understand how plant-eating animals first appeared on land. The newly described species is one of the earliest ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Over 390 million years ago, the ancestors of modern land ...

The transition from water to land is a question that still intrigues scientists. Those ancient organisms would have needed to adapt to several new challenges to life out of water. So, how did they do ...

Paleorex is back on Bored Panda with his detailed, science-based creatures, showing us how animals like big cats, birds, and reptiles might evolve in the future. In this article, we’re featuring even ...

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 ...

A huge and beautifully preserved suite of fossils discovered in China has cast doubt on the idea that complex life flourished dramatically during a rapid burst of evolution known as the Cambrian ...

Researchers at the University of Bristol have traced the genetic changes that allowed animals to colonize land not once but at least 11 separate times across the tree of life, finding that distantly ...