Birds are the most diverse land vertebrate on the planet, and now scientists have constructed a complete evolutionary tree of the 11,000 or so known species. This data came from hundreds of studies ...

Poposaurus comes from a group of extinct relatives of the crocodile known as Poposauroidea. Crocodiles and birds share an evolutionary heritage with dinosaurs and pterosaurs, despite there being ...

Explore an interactive avian tree of life that reveals how 11,000 bird species are connected through millions of years of ...

We humans have long viewed ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution. People label other species as “primitive” or “ancient” and use terms like “higher” and “lower” animals. This anthropocentric ...

Tree thinking is a pedagogical approach that emphasises the interpretation and construction of phylogenetic trees to elucidate evolutionary relationships. In the context of evolutionary biology ...

Centromeres play virtually the same central role across the entire tree of life: They ensure the faithful segregation of ...

New research headed by scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) has demonstrated how the three-dimensional shape of a protein can be used to resolve deep, ancient evolutionary ...

Just as bird watchers may use binoculars to add to their species lists, scientists interested in bird evolution may use computational tools to clarify avian lineages. Indeed, such tools have enabled ...

New research shows the “upside-down trees” originated in Madagascar and then caught a ride on ocean currents to reach mainland Africa and Australia. By Rachel Nuwer Baobabs are one of the most ...