The interrelationships between major living vertebrate, and even chordate, groups are now reasonably well resolved thanks to a large amount of generally congruent data derived from molecular sequences ...

'Junk DNA' could hold the secret of the evolutionary origin of complex animals, according to new research. Vertebrates - animals such as humans that possess a backbone - are the most anatomically and ...

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, ...

Charles Darwin proposed that evolution is driven by gradual variations in organisms that have a survival advantage in a changing environment. But University of Maryland evolutionary biologist Karen ...