Charles Darwin worried that the fossil record looked strangely abrupt, with complex animals appearing in a geological instant ...

About 445 million years ago, Earth nearly wiped out life in the oceans. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, ...

Sponges are among Earth's most ancient animals, but exactly when they evolved has long puzzled scientists. Genetic ...

Jawbones and other remains, similar to specimens found in Europe, were dated to 773,000 years and help close a gap in ...

Beginning with a recently discovered 47-million-year-old primate fossil, Switek effectively and eloquently demonstrates the exponential increase in fossils that have been found since Darwin first ...

A single fossilized footprint, roughly 1 meter long, has pushed paleontologists to redraw the upper limits of dinosaur size after sitting in storage for nearly two decades. The track, nicknamed ...

NEW YORK — Scientists say they’ve found a “missing link” in the early evolution of seals and walruses — the skeleton of a web-footed, otter-like creature that was evolving away from a life on land.

The oldest fossilised remains of complex animals appear suddenly in the fossil record, and as if from nowhere, in rocks that ...

The fossil record of baleen whales (Mysticeti) offers a window into one of the most dramatic evolutionary transitions among mammals. Early cetaceans evolved from terrestrial artiodactyl ancestors into ...

The legendary “Little Foot” fossil may be an entirely new human ancestor. An international team of scientists led by ...