In hidden cavities beneath the floor of the deep ocean, in the oases created by hydrothermal activity, whole communities of multicellular animals are living their best lives down in the darkness. The ...

Ancient animal history is extremely difficult to reconstruct, for a number of reasons. Some of the earliest creatures in existence were soft-bodied and microscopic, leaving behind very little evidence ...

In the red-brown siltstones of Yunnan province, southwest China, paleontologists have found something that was not supposed ...

A remarkable fossil discovery in southwest China is rewriting the story of how complex animal life began, showing that many key animal groups appeared millions of years earlier than scientists once ...

The remarkable discovery of animal life beneath the seafloor shows that life finds a way even in the most extreme environments, potentially boosting hopes for finding life beyond Earth. Reading time 4 ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Here's why Dickinsonia challenges our previously held ...

Life began in the sea, and it took a long time to move onto land. Plants started creeping ashore about 475 million years ago. Roughly 100 million years later, the first backboned animals followed. For ...

This November 2023 photo provided by Gaorong Li shows a Haootia-like fossil at Yunnan University in Kunming, China. (Gaorong Li via AP) WASHINGTON — Newly discovered fossils have given scientists ...

Newly uncovered fossils in southwestern China are forcing scientists to rethink when Earth first shifted from simple, flat, ...