Evolution (Page 7)

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

Latest in Evolution

A hyenea shows its jaws. Giant hyenas went extinct about 500,000 years ago, but were roughly 240 pounds and skilled scavengers like their modern counterparts.

How many ancient humans does it take to fight off a giant hyena?

By Laura Baisas

A tarantula with a mostly black body, but bright blue legs and pincers. Chilobrachys natanicharum is the first tarantula species found in Thailand’s mangrove trees. CREDIT: Yuranan Nanthaisong/ZooKeys.

Meet the first electric blue tarantula known to science

By Laura Baisas

Multiple reddish pink parasitic plants called balanophora growing in a forest. Balanophora shed one third of its genes as it evolved into a very streamlined parasitic plant.

These parasitic plants force their victims to make them dinner

By Laura Baisas

A dissected ant and where you can see the encapsulated parasites (white oval structures) spilling out of the hind body.

This parasite deploys mucus slime balls to make ‘zombie ants’

By Laura Baisas

Microraptor wearing helmet is shot out of a circus cannon to represent how dinosaurs evolved to fly. Illustration in red, yellow, blue, and green.

We still don’t know how animals evolved to fly

Virgin Galactic spacecraft in suborbital flight above Earth

Virgin Galactic’s latest cargo? Ancient human bones

two jackdaws (Corvus monedula) on a branch

These crow relatives put food over friendship

By Sara Kiley Watson

An artist’s illustration of the 25 million year old Ditjimanka Lumakoala blackae, featuring (left to right) the wallaby-sized herbivore Muramura williamsi, an extinct koala relative named Madakoala devis,i and the calf-size lizard called Ilaria lawsone.

Scientists discover a cat-sized ancient koala in Australia

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of Fujianvenator prodigiosus, an avialan theropod who lived during the Late Jurassic period and had a lower leg that was twice as long as its thigh.

Leggy dinosaur species could be the latest feathery clue to bird evolution

By Laura Baisas

Two monkeys sitting in a forest. Dartmouth researchers report that apes and early humans evolved more flexible shoulders and elbows than monkeys to safely get out of trees. For early humans, these versatile appendages would have been essential for gathering food and deploying tools for hunting and defense.

Our tree-climbing ancestors evolved our abilities to throw far and reach high

By Laura Baisas

A couple standing on the beach in warm sunlight.

Couples often share more common traits than we might think

By Laura Baisas

An artistic reconstruction of Kylinxia, a relative of present day insects and crustaceans. It has two extended forelimbs, a round and segmented body, and three eyes on its head.

A three-eyed organism roamed the seas half a billion years ago

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of a sabertooth tiger in a grassland. Sabertooth tigers went extinct between about 8,000 and 10,000 years ago.

Mighty sabertooth tigers may have purred like kittens

By Laura Baisas

A coral reef just off of an island in Palau. Coral reefs in Palau provide critical habitats for a number of species and provide a storm barrier.

Some Pacific coral reefs can keep pace with a warming ocean

By Laura Baisas

Artist's interpretation of Venetoraptor gassenae in a Triassic landscape.

This flightless pterosaur ancestor had enviable claws and a raptor-like beak

By Laura Baisas

Members of the Dutch Tall Ship Oosterschelde wave goodbye from the quay in Rotterdam on August 4, 2023. The Rotterdam ship departs for a two-year world tour that scientist Charles Darwin made two centuries ago.

Mission to recreate Darwin’s scientific Beagle voyage sets sail

By Laura Baisas

Artist impression of the stem pinniped Potamotherium valletoni swimming in his natural, freshwater environment. Grasses and plants grow below the animal, that has whiskers, legs, and flippers.

Hungry seals may have begun following their whiskers 23 million years ago

By Laura Baisas

Our galaxy, the Milky Way.

How might life migrate through the universe?

By Roberto Battiston/MIT Press Reader

Archaeologists dig in the dirt with a brush and scraper.

Mysterious skull points to a possible new branch on human family tree

By Laura Baisas

A man is looking in a glass case of coprolites collected in Nong Yakong village, Chaiyaphum Province, Thailand.

Rare parasites found in 200 million-year-old reptile poop

By Laura Baisas

taxidermied two-headed goat kid

Life after death never looked so beautiful

By Ted Cavanaugh, Sara Kiley Watson

Reconstruction of Hupehsuchus about to engulf a shoal of shrimp. The ancient lizard widely opens its skinny snout and large mouth to swallow a large ball of shrimp.

The planet’s first filter feeder could be this extinct marine reptile

By Laura Baisas

A Heliconius butterfly with black, orange, and white on its wings.

Butterflies can remember specific flower foraging routes

By Laura Baisas

An artist's rendition of the Perucetus colossus.

This giant sea cow-like whale may have been the heaviest creature to ever live on Earth

By Sara Kiley Watson

Artistic reconstruction of a group of Burgessomedusa phasmiformis swimming in the Cambrian sea.

Jellyfish may have been roaming the seas for at least 500 million years

By Laura Baisas

A bee on a peach rose. Understanding how flowering plants and bees evolved together can help inform conservation efforts for pollinators and how to keep their populations healthy.

The world’s earliest bees may have called Gondwana home

By Laura Baisas

A scanning electron picture of a female Panagrolaimus kolymaensis nematode.

Recently awoken 46,000-year-old nematodes already have 100 generations of babies

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s impression of Solnhofia parsonsi’s environment in an Upper Jurassic lagoon 150 million years ago in what is now Lower Bavaria. The turtle swims in a shallow body of water, with fish swimming near it and pterosaurs flying above.

150 million-year-old turtle ‘pancake’ found in Germany

By Laura Baisas

Giganotosaurus vs. T. rex in a screenshot from Jurassic World Dominion

Giganotosaurus vs. T. rex: Who would win in a battle of the big dinosaurs?

By Eva Botkin-Kowacki

parasitic horsehair worm

‘Brainwashing’ parasites inherit a strange genetic gap

By Maddi Langweil

An artistic reconstruction showing how this 300,000 year-old stick would have been thrown on a hunt. Two men stand in a shallow body of water, with one aiming the stick towards three birds.

A javelin-like stick shows early humans may have been keen woodworkers

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s illustration of Alligator munensis, which is skimming the water with its eye out and surrounded by lush green trees. The large tooth sockets towards the back of its mouth suggest this extinct gator could crush shells and may have snacked on hard-shelled prey like snails.

Extinct snub-nosed gator had big teeth for crushing snails

By Laura Baisas

A banded sea snake swimming freely

Some sea snakes may not be colorblind after all

By Laura Baisas

Oldest tunicate on record from the Cambrian explosion, illustrated on the ocean floor

A 500-million-year-old sea squirt is the evolutionary clue we need to understand our humble beginnings

By Maddi Langweil

A honey bee pollinates a yellow flower against a bright blue sky.

Bee brains could teach robots to make split-second decisions

By Laura Baisas

Two male male rhesus macaques sit on the ground, one with his head down towards the other

Same-sex mounting in male macaques can help them reproduce more successfully

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of Anomalocaris, which lived 541 million to 530 million years ago during the Cambrian Period. The animal has two bulging eyes on the top of its head and spiny front appendages,

Ancient ‘weird shrimp from Canada’ used bizarre appendages to scarf up soft prey

By Laura Baisas

The silhouette of a female hunter with a bow and arrow at sunrise.

Women have been skillful, purposeful hunters in most foraging societies

By Laura Baisas

A spider monkey stands on a tree branch with a baby monkey on her back.

The ancestor of all placental mammals survived the dino-killing asteroid

By Laura Baisas

An orangutan sits in the forest and looks forward with its hands under its chin.

Orangutans can make two sounds at the same time

By Laura Baisas

An artist's illustration of a megalogon, which went extinct 3.6 million years ago and are believed to have grown to lengths of 50 feet.

Megalodons were likely warm-blooded, despite being stone-cold killers

By Laura Baisas

A close-up of a katydid, an insect with six long and lean legs.

A 50-million-year-old insect testicle is one lucky find

By Laura Baisas

Close-up photos of three fossil animal specimens from the same area and time horizon as the fossil hominin tibia studied by the research team. These fossils show similar cut marks to those found on the hominin tibia studied. The photos show (a) an antelope mandible, (b) an antelope radius (lower front leg bone) and (c) a large mammal scapula (shoulder blade).

Cut-up prehistoric bone raises questions about early human cannibalism

By Laura Baisas

An artist’s reconstruction of Olympicetus thalassodon pursuing a school of fishes alongside plotopterid birds (background) somewhere in the eastern North Pacific Ocean.

This dolphin ancestor looked like a cross between Flipper and Moby Dick

By Laura Baisas

Examples of engravings discovered in the Roche-Cotard cave (Indre et Loire - France). On the left, the "circular panel" (ogive-shaped tracings) and on the right the "wavy panel" (two contiguous tracings forming sinuous lines).

Neanderthals were likely creating art 57,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

A white Andalusian horse galloping in a field.

Horses once had multiple hoofed toes

By Laura Baisas

Bite marks on Triassic fossils show signs of bloody dino decapitation

Bite marks on Triassic fossils show signs of bloody dino decapitation

By Sara Kiley Watson

This extremely metal Cretaceous dinosaur grew blade-like armor

This extremely metal Cretaceous dinosaur grew blade-like armor

By Sara Kiley Watson

Australian giant skink

This chunky ancient lizard was 1,000 times bigger than its modern relatives

By Sara Kiley Watson

Two ants facing one another. Ants release a pheromone that helps other ants sense danger.

Ants brains are surprisingly good at communicating danger to others

By Laura Baisas

Lucy, our ancient human ancestor, was super buff

Lucy, our ancient human ancestor, was super buff

By Sara Kiley Watson

single fruit fly

Flies age faster once they’ve seen death

By Sara Kiley Watson

Paramecium bursaria under a microscope. All creatures whose cells house a nucleus, including Paramecium bursaria, can be traced back to a common ancestor called the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA).

Newfound single-celled hunters may have been Earth’s first-ever predators

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of the rhynchosaur Bentonyx from the Middle Triassic of Devon, about 245 million years ago.

This ancient reptile had a deadly vegetarian diet

By Laura Baisas

The California two-spot octopus (Bimaculoides) is the first octopus species to have its genome sequenced and is very helpful for studying cephalopods.

Octopuses rewrite their own RNA to survive freezing temperatures

By Laura Baisas

A monkey laying on a tree smiling.

Super semen could be one reason why primates evolved to masturbate

By Laura Baisas

These species were discovered in museum collections. They might already be extinct.

These species were discovered in museum collections. They might already be extinct.

By Katarina Zimmer / Undark

A mother and baby golden snub nosed monkey. These primates live in mountainous regions of southwestern China. Longer periods of maternal care may have helped them form more complex societies.

Chilly climates may have forged stronger social bonds in some primates

By Laura Baisas

Reassembled partial skeleton Ambulator keanei with silhouette demonstrating advanced adaptations for quadrupedal, graviportal walking.

This 500-pound Australian marsupial had feet made for walkin’

By Laura Baisas

A walker in sneakers, with the bottom of the shoe visible.

Evolution of human foot arches put the necessary pep in our upright steps

By Laura Baisas

A sloth hangs in a tree in Costa Rica. The mammals have the slowest digestive system of any animal on Earth. It can take sloths two weeks to digest an entire meal, and they sleep about 20 hours a day to conserve energy.

Sloth schedules are surprisingly flexible

By Laura Baisas

A spiny mouse standing on a rock. Spiny mice can regenerate skin, muscle, nerves, spinal cord, and possibly cardiac tissue.

African spiny mouse joins a small but mighty group of bony plated mammals

By Laura Baisas

Siler collingwoodi is a colorful, ant-mimicking spider found in China and Japan.

This spider pretends to be an ant, but not well enough to avoid being eaten

By Laura Baisas

A blue butterfly on a pink flowering plant.

A ‘butterfly tree of life’ reveals the origins of these beautiful insects

By Laura Baisas