Evolution (Page 4)

The latest science on how life has adapted and changed over generations—and how new species come to be.

Latest in Evolution

Striated frogfish (Antennarius striatus), also known as the hairy frogfish.

Anglerfish use ‘extremely rare’ mechanism to control their lures

A juvenile Nile crocodile. It is small with pointed teeth

Why are crocodiles so bumpy? A dermatological mystery has been solved

By Laura Baisas

Frozen surface of Lake Enigma

Life discovered lurking under Antarctica’s frozen Lake Enigma

a siberian husky sits in the snow. it has piercing blue eyes and its ears are perked up

Humans gave dogs treats 12,000 years ago, new archeological evidence suggests

By Laura Baisas

The anglerfish species Lophius piscatorius.

Anglerfish are so much more than just their dangly bioluminescent lures

By Laura Baisas

brain scans in pink, blue, and yellow

Humans may have big brains thanks to our gut

By Laura Baisas

a long piece of fossilized dinosaur poop on the ground

200-million-year-old dinosaur poop and vomit reveal a lost Jurassic world

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of the amygdala, shown in red. It is a part of the brain’s limbic system and plays a key role in processing emotions.

‘Was I awkward?’ What overthinking after a party has to do with your ‘lizard brain’

By Laura Baisas

A mother and calf West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) in Crystal River, Florida.

Florida’s famous manatees were originally tourists

By Laura Baisas

Marine fossils found at Neanderthal cave site

Neanderthals may have enjoyed collecting tchotchkes—just like us

stone walls separating several small houses in ireland

Scottish, Irish, and Northern English better at detecting fake accents

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of two Skiphosoura bavarica in flight.

New pterosaur species sliced through the air with a sword-like tail

By Laura Baisas

a small bird with black, gray, and white, plumage solves a puzzle in a lab

Immigrating great tits learn from their new neighbors

By Laura Baisas

x-ray scans of early human skulls. the teeth are colored red, green, orange, blue, and purple to show the differences among them

These 1.77-million-year-old teeth could help demystify human childhoods

By Laura Baisas

an elephant in a zoo enclosure holds a yellow hose in its trunk and uses the hose as a shower

Watch a clever elephant use a hose to get clean

By Laura Baisas

Chimpanzee playing a number-based game on a touch screen

Like humans, chimps often perform tasks differently when crowds are watching

Illustration of a terror bird standing by river

Meat-eating terror birds could grow up to 12 feet tall

a tadpole swimming

A rock in Argentina turns out to be the oldest tadpole fossil ever found

By Laura Baisas

Thalattosuchian skulls. Showing the semi-aquatic species (A and B), and the fully aquatic metriorhynchid (C).

Why don’t we have deep sea crocodiles?

An illustration of Lomankus edgecombei. This arthropod lived about 538 to 485 million years ago in dark and low-oxygen environments.

450-million-year-old arthropod found preserved in fool’s gold

By Laura Baisas

Silhouette of a loving couple hugging and kissing at sunset on the beach.

The origins of kissing may have a lot to do with body hair

a rider in a headless horseman costume rides by yellow fall leaves

The Headless Horseman shares her secrets

By Laura Baisas

two stalk-eyed flies fight on a stick. these flies have long antennae with eyeballs on the tips

Flies with shorter eye-stalks act aggressively because females are less attracted to them

By Laura Baisas

a close up of four pieces of sliced bread

Our love of delicious carbs may go back 800,000 years

By Laura Baisas

An illustration showing an imposing fully-grown male Palaeoloxodon turkmenicus wandering India’a Kashmir Valley, 400,000 years ago, towering over a herd of Central Asian red deer. In the distance, a small band of prehistoric humans set up a campfire to cook their meal.

Mysterious elephant species uncovered with 87 prehistoric stone tools

By Laura Baisas

Fungi growing on circle and cross arrangement wood blocks

A simple experiment revealed the complex ‘thoughts’ of fungi

a finch with a sharp beak and dark plumage holds a round seed in its beak

Scientists simulate calls of ‘future finches’

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a large hawk-like bird carrying a long tailed rodent in its claws

With fearsome feet, hawk-sized Cretaceous birds could scoop up baby dinos

By Laura Baisas

This picture shows many tiny cells in which DNA is abundantly included inside the cells.

Oldest living microbes found in 2-billion-year-old rock

Geckos have a ‘sixth sense’

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a pterosaur with a short tail walking with legs and its wings on the ground

The first true flying vertebrates walked before they could soar

By Laura Baisas

a dolphin in a tank with an open mouth

Bottlenose dolphins ‘smile’ to say it’s time to play

By Laura Baisas

a sea robin fish with wide pectoral fins and six crab-like legs

This fish has 6 legs that act like tongues

By Laura Baisas

a CT scan of two jaw fossils from early mammals

A 225-million-year-old fossilized jaw joint shifts evolutionary timeline

By Laura Baisas

Water anole breathing through air bubble underwater

This lizard’s skin creates an underwater bubble helmet

a polar bear cub comes out of a den with its paw up

Polar bears adapted to the Arctic just 70,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

a reservoir in colombia with very low water levels due to drought

Mega El Niños helped kill 90 percent of life on Earth

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a long gray coelacanth swimming in its native habitat

The ‘living fossil’ that thrived during a mass extinction

By Laura Baisas

neanderthal teeth in a cave

Neanderthals’ social isolation may have sped up their extinction

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a small bird with light brown, black, and white plummage. it has a long beak with sharp teeth

‘Weird’ prehistoric bird had a weaponized beak with teeth

By Laura Baisas

Mini mum is one of the smallest frogs in the world, described by Mark D. Scherz and his colleagues in 2019. These tiny frogs from southeastern Madagascar live in amongst the leaf litter and feed on tiny mites. They are amongst the target species of the GEMINI project, because their closest relatives are ten times larger.

Researchers want to unlock genetics of the world’s tiniest animals

an illustration of a striped tasmanian tiger with sharp teeth eating the body of a wombat-like creature

New bone-crushing Tasmanian tiger species dug up by paleontologists

By Laura Baisas

a pterosaur speices flaps its wings to fly, while another uses them to soar

‘Remarkable’ fossils offer clues to perplexing pterosaur question

By Laura Baisas

several loaves of golden rustic looking bread on a table

How farming helped humans evolve to get more energy from carbs

By Laura Baisas

Illustration of Sasayamagnomus saegusai

Tiny triceratops ancestor named after gnomes

an orange starfish with four arms of similar size and one shorter arm sits on some rocks

How starfish lose limbs (on purpose) and survive

By Laura Baisas

a moth with a yellow body, pink legs, and pink and yellow wings sits on a green leaf

The ‘disco’ gene could help moths tell time

By Laura Baisas

an insect lays on its back with its abdomen and legs in the air. it is playing dead to trick predators

Antlion larvae can ‘play dead’ for more than an hour–then, things get random

By Laura Baisas

Anatomically accurate sculpture of a dodo

The dodo was faster and smarter than you think

This eyeless cavefish grows extra taste buds on its head

Specimen photographed with autofluorescence under confocal microscope at 639 nm; different colors indicate z-depth, with violet to red gradient representing the shallowest to deepest planes, respectively.

Extremely rare tardigrade fossils seen in unprecedented detail

a lemur in an enclosure stares into a takeout container

Lemurs use smell, social cues, and superior memories to find treats

By Laura Baisas

four different types of corn. one is long and yellow, the other is shorter and yellow. the other two are shorter and black

Love corn? Thank interbreeding

By Laura Baisas

human bones belonging to an small, extinct, early human secies

New ‘Hobbit’ fossils discovered on Indonesia’s Flores island

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of a small penguin with light black, yellow, and white feathers on a new zealand beach

Tiny fossil reveals when penguins evolved their surprisingly useful wings

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s reconstruction of Shishania aculeata as it would have appeared in life as viewed from the top, side and bottom (left to right). This early mollusk lived about 514 million years ago.

A ‘rotting little plastic bag’ was actually a 514 million-year-old fossil

By Laura Baisas

Artist’s impression of the lobate macrofossils living 2.1 billion years ago in a shallow marine inland sea created by the collision of two continents.

Study claims life tried to evolve 1.5 billion years earlier than we thought

a firefly with its bottom half illuminated

A new theory on why fireflies glow—and why they need help

By Laura Baisas

dead bird specimens with blue and green plumage in museum storage

All living birds share an ‘iridescent’ ancestor

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of an long cylindrical arthropod. it has big blue eyes, a body that looks like a taco shell, several short red legs, and a tail

This taco-shaped critter is a big (evolutionary) deal

By Laura Baisas

an illustration of two mouse-like animals in a forest, with a stegosaurus walking by and a mosquito flying over them

Baby teeth reveal surprisingly long lifespans of small Jurassic mammals

By Laura Baisas

a peacock butterfly on a pink plant. its wings are primarily red, with black, yellow, and blue circles

Butterflies and moths suck up pollen with static electricity

By Laura Baisas

five chimpanzeess sitting in tall, green grass

Chimp conversations can take on human-like chaos

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of newly discovered crocodile relative named Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis on the coast of an ancient ocean called Panthalassa.

Say hello to the surprising crocodile relative Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis

By Laura Baisas