Evolution

The massive supervolcano eruption 74,000 years ago has been blamed for nearly killing off our species. The emerging truth is much more interesting.

Spike-toothed salmon grew nearly nine feet long and sported tusk-like teeth.

For decades, East Africa was considered the birthplace of our species. Fossils from Morocco suggest otherwise.

These mollusks evolved to mosey along at a particularly ponderous pace—the reasons why may surprise you.

A subtle, if temporary, change to one of the world’s biggest websites underscored a modern triumph of paleontology, and how we understand life on Earth.

All you need is a jar of local water and a microscope—you may even find new species. Welcome to Algae Obscura.

A marine reptile fossil from Svalbard challenges ideas about evolution and Earth’s greatest mass extinction.

The monstrous menace known as Whatcheeria hints that our distant ancestors may have been more like us than we thought.

What a toxic Andean lake has to say about the dawn of life.

A creepy form of parasitism is one of evolution's favorite strategies, and scientists are starting to figure out how it works.

The evolutionary marvel mates in love trains, can swim in the ocean, and even uses jazz hands as a defensive tactic.

From a flightless giant heavier than a polar bear to a super-glider with a 24-foot wingspan, avians ancient and modern compete for the crown.

With a ‘Swiss Army knife’ head, tiny arms, and no relation to T. rex, a new dino find is providing intriguing evolutionary insights.

Fossils unearthed in the Bahariya Oasis tell a story of giant predators hunting on land and in the water.

But proving the “drunken monkey” hypothesis has been an exhausting—and messy—endeavor.

Or at least it used to. What can these recently identified dino-birds teach us about extinction?

Modern humans arrived in Southern France—deep in Neanderthal territory—10,000 years earlier than thought.