"This book was originally published as an issue of Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society B; Biological sciences (volume 363; number 1496) but has been materially changed and updated"--Title ...

Surprisingly, genome comparisons have failed to resolve a major question in animal evolution: Which living animals are the descendants of the earliest animals to evolve in the world's oceans?

700 million years ago, a remarkable creature emerged for the first time. Though it may not have been much to look at by today’s standards, the animal had a front and a back, a top and a bottom. This ...

Deep, deep in geologic time, some 600 million or 700 million years ago, the very first animals evolved on Earth. Their closest relatives that still live today include sponges, sea anemones and comb ...

Recent research published in Nature has transformed our understanding of animal evolution by revealing that ctenophores, also known as comb jellies, represent the earliest branch of the animal tree of ...

For decades, biologists have attempted to trace the earliest split on the animal tree of life, one that occurred approximately 600 million years ago. All living animals, from mammals to mollusks, ...