Evolution

Why Do Humans Have Chins?

The most distinctive human feature might be that bony protrusion that made Jay Leno famous

The ancestor of all living snakes, depicted on the prowl in the South American forests it likely inhabited 110 million years ago, likely possessed a pair of tiny hind limbs and hunted at night.

The Mother of All Snakes Looked Surprisingly Modern

New research indicates why the slithery beast's body appears pretty much as it did 110 million years ago

A trap-jaw ant opens its massive mandibles.

Watch These Ants Hurl Themselves Out of Death Traps With Their Mouths

At least one trap-jaw ant species has coopted its exceptionally strong mandibles to escape its nemesis, the ferocious antlion

Here the experimental chick embryo (center) can be compared to a typical chicken about to hatch (left) and an alligator (right)

Researchers Create Chicken Embryos With Dinosaur-Like Faces

Researchers seeking to understand how birds got their beaks turned back the evolutionary clock just a tad

Bat-like Yi qi is the flying dinosaur this forest deserves.

This Fluffy Little Dinosaur Had Bat-Like Wings

About the size of a sparrow, Yi qi probably glided through Jurassic forests on membrane-covered appendages

A Diana monkey, perhaps tuning in to the distress calls of fellow primates.

Monkeys Can Hack Each Other’s Grammar

Campbell’s monkeys add suffixes to alarm calls to indicate specific threats, and Diana monkeys tune in for their own benefit

The day Darwin climbed Patagonia’s Mount Tarn, Conrad Martens painted it from across the bay.

The Beautiful Drawings by Darwin's Artist-in-Residence

On the famous HMS Beagle voyage, painter Conrad Martens depicted the sights along the journey

Borneo orangutan

Learn the Secrets of Ape’s Sleeping Habits

Apes sleep better and longer than other primates

The oceans are teeming with tetrapods—“four-legged” birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians—that have repeatedly transitioned from the land to the sea, adapting their legs into fins.

Take a Deep Dive Into The Reasons Land Animals Moved to the Seas

Synthesizing decades of discoveries, scientists have revealed links between changing environments and animal movements

Here’s Why the Dutch Are So Tall

A new study shows natural selection is alive and well in the Netherlands

Why is music so important to so many of us?

Here’s How Music Really Could Soothe Your Soul

A leading scholar theorizes that music developed as an evolutionary adaptation to help us deal with the contradictory nature of life

It's a beetle invasion! These lady beetles (also known as lady bugs) are just one of Earth's family of beetles.

Beetle Species, Weirdly, Almost Never Go Extinct

The world is disproportionately filled with beetles—now, a new study suggests that’s because few species have ever been wiped out

This shot of a statue from the Louvre is one of the least-shocking anus-related image we came up with.

Science Is Still Unclear About the Evolutionary Origin of the Anus

A newly published scientific review attempts to “get to the bottom” of how animals acquired what some might call the most indecent part of the body

A scanning electronic microscope image of the 600 million-year-old sponge-like fossil

One of the Oldest Known Animals Is This Tiny, Ancient Sponge

A new fossil find pushes back the start of the evolution of multicellular animals

Luna moths - arguably the most spectacular moths in North America - deflect bat attacks with their ornate wing tails.

Luna Moths’ Gorgeous Wings Throw Off Bat Attacks

Spinning twin tails at the end of moth wings garble bats’ sonar cries, causing the winged predators to miss the tasty mark

The results of agriculture changed our mouths, but not completely for the better.

Before Agriculture, Human Jaws Were a Perfect Fit for Human Teeth

The emergence of agricultural practices initiated major changes to the jaw structure of ancient humans, leading to dental problems we still experience

There's a Big Rift in Opinion Between Americans And Scientists

New study shows that citizens and scientists only agree some of the time

The Wrists of Birds Reveal Evolution Undoing Itself

Contrary to earlier claims, a new study shows that evolution may be reversible

One Orangutan Has Learned to Sound Just Like Us

This defies scientists’ former assumption that great apes just couldn’t learn new calls

Ancient Dogs Likely Arrived in America Thousands of Years After Humans

New research on dog DNA shows that they migrated to the new world much later than initially thought

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