The radiodont Anomalocaris, with its large stalked eyes, is considered a top predator that swam in the oceans more than 500 million years ago.
Katrina Kenny
Our study on weird ancient marine animals called radiodonts supports the idea that vision played a crucial role during the Cambrian Explosion, a rapid burst of evolution about 500 million years ago.
66 million years ago, birds survived the calamity that wiped out all prehistoric dinosaurs. But could birds once again evolve into their long lost ancestors?
As viruses are transmitted from person to person they are constantly mutating and replicating. Could the SARS-CoV-2 virus evolve to evade the new vaccines that have just been developed?
The skull of a reedbuck about to be X-rayed at Donald Gordon Hospital in Johannesburg.
Julien Benoit
The assumption that the lateral semicircular canal of the inner ear can be used to reconstruct head posture in extinct species has long remained unchallenged.
By eliminating the less fit individuals over time, predation can drive the population to increasing fitness in terms of survival and reproductive success.
Two Cimoliopterus pterosaurs, with 5m wing spans.
Mark Witton/University of Reading
The Earth’s magnetic field was most likely weaker when life evolved on our planet than it is today.
Sabre-tooth tiger Smilodon meets the South American marsupial, Thylacosmilus. This is a classic image of supposedly ‘superior northerners’ outcompeting ‘inferior southerners’, but such meetings actually rarely happened as many of the southern species had already gone extinct.
'The rise of Smilodon', Hodari Nundu
Local adaptation allows plants and animals to thrive in a diversity of places. Sometimes adaptation sharpens patterns of where organisms live, but 85% of the time, it creates a more homogeneous world.
Researchers are figuring out how plants respond to the presence of human cadavers. The findings could prove important for discovering the locations of murder victims or mass graves.