Latimeria or Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae Smith), A living fossil, the oldest known living lineage of Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish and tetrapods).© Openfinal/Shutterstock.com Nature craves ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Life on Earth began over four billion years ago, not long ...

These sea creatures may have been some of the fiercest predators ...

The authors of “A History of Life in 100 Fossils” write about the secrets of the animal kingdom Paul D. Taylor and Aaron O'Dea Fossils can illustrate evolutionary themes: speciation, evolutionary ...

Armed with the ability to accept all cells as its own, comb jellies can merge with others to survive. Here’s how it works. On a quiet summer day at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, ...

Ever wonder how saber-toothed cats and other extinct creatures behaved? Well, a team of scientists unearthed ancient footprints that offer insight into how various prehistoric animals lived as far ...

Ancient animal history is extremely difficult to reconstruct, for a number of reasons. Some of the earliest creatures in existence were soft-bodied and microscopic, leaving behind very little evidence ...

Scientists in China have uncovered more than 700 exceptionally preserved fossils from the late Ediacaran period, revealing complex bilaterian animals millions of years earlier than previously thought.

Slime molds, which live in soil, are truly ancient animals. They arrived on land close to a billion years ago and may well have colonized continents that were then home only to films of bacteria.

In many ancient cultures, animals were viewed as messengers of the divine or direct manifestations of deities. Temples, being the most sacred centers of worship, naturally became spaces where animals ...