The preservation of fossils of some of the oldest known vertebrates is so impressive that palaeontologists can not only count their eyes, but determine how they worked. The findings demonstrate that ...

New fossil evidence from China suggests that some of our vertebrate ancestors had four eyes. The study, published in Nature, ...

About 445 million years ago, Earth’s oceans turned into a danger zone. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, ...

One of Earth’s earliest mass extinctions wiped out most ocean life during a sudden global ice age. From the ruins, jawed vertebrates survived, diversified, and transformed the course of evolution.

A rapid climate collapse during the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction devastated ocean life and reshuffled Earth’s ecosystems.

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

A massive ice age wiped out ocean life 445 million years ago, reshaping ecosystems and setting the stage for jawed fish ...

Scarce evidence indicates that key evolutionary steps for jawed vertebrates occurred during or before the Silurian period, 444 million to 419 million years ago. Fossil finds pull back the curtain on ...

Scientists have long puzzled over the gap in the fossil record that would explain the evolution of invertebrates to vertebrates. Vertebrates, including fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, ...

From genetics alone, scientists can now predict how long any of myriad different creatures can live. The “lifespan clock” estimates vertebrate animals’ (those with a backbone) longevity — including ...

Vertebrates are defined as all animals that possess a vertebral column, or backbone. Most living vertebrates also possess jaws, teeth and paired fins or limbs. The vast majority of vertebrate species ...