As early humans spread from lush African forests into grasslands, their need for ready sources of energy led them to develop a taste for grassy plants, especially grains and the starchy plant tissue ...

Photograph and skeletal reconstruction of the 150-million-year-old bird Zhengheornis buyu. [Photo provided to ...

The first four-legged vertebrates did not grow up like tadpoles after all. That idea has shaped the story of life on land for ...

One of the most important steps in the evolution of modern mammals was the development of highly sensitive hearing. The middle ear of mammals, with an eardrum and several small bones, allows us to ...

Over 300 million years ago, a minnow-sized fish died and fell to the bottom of a prehistoric swamp near the village of ...

It's easy to take for granted that with the flick of a lighter or the turn of a furnace knob, modern humans can conjure flames — cooking food, lighting candles or warming homes. For much of our ...

For decades, the story of primate origins seemed straightforward. Early primates were thought to have emerged in warm, humid ...

The water-to-land transition stands as one of the most significant events in vertebrate evolution, giving rise to the two major groups of living land vertebrates—amniotes and lissamphibians—which ...

Long before oceans teemed with life, Earth endured relentless violence. Asteroids slammed into its surface again and again, ...