Scientists had no idea what type of organisms the life forms of the Ediacaran were—lichen, colonies of bacteria, fungi or something else. It turns out, the key to solving the puzzle of Precambrian life was a tiny bit of fossilized fat.

The story of how the starfish got its arms reminds us that even animals that might be familiar to us today can have incredibly deep histories - ones that stretch back almost half a billion years.

The story of the egg spans millions of years, from the first vertebrates that dared to venture onto land to today’s mammals, including the platypus, and of course birds. Like chickens? We’re here to tell you: The egg came first.

There were a huge number of croc-like animals that flourished during the Triassic Period. Dinosaurs had just arrived on the scene but it was these animals that truly ruled the Earth, becoming both abundant and diverse.

What’s the real story of the dodo? How did such a unique bird even evolve in the first place? And are we really responsible for its extinction?

Toxodon was one of the last members of a lineage that vanished 11,000 years ago after thriving in isolation for millions of years. And its fossils would inspire a revolutionary thinker to tackle a bigger mystery than Toxodon itself:...

This video contains images and video of snakes and spiders. It's possible Euchambersia possessed venom about 20 million years before the first lizards and over 150 million years before the first snakes evolved. We’ve teamed up Sarah...

We tend to think that evolution only goes in one direction— toward getting bigger and more advanced. But that’s not always the case. This tiny, simple animal, the Myxozoans, (yes, animal!) evolved from something bigger and more complex.

Visiting the Largest Bat Colony on Earth!

Animals as simple as bees and as complex as you and me… like to have fun. But what’s the point of fun? Do all animals have fun? And for that matter, what is fun?

Comic book heroes ain't got nothin' on evolution.

Why do whales, elephants, and other large animals not get cancer? Logically, the larger an animal is, and the longer it lives, the more likely it should be to get cancer. But these giants don’t. Why is that? And can the answer help...

In the race to survive, both predators and prey use visual tricks to get ahead. One nearly universal trick is countershading, a color pattern that helps animals erase their own shadows or blend into different backgrounds. It’s worked...

A human with the metabolism of a hummingbird would need to eat about 80,000 calories a day to survive. That’s because staying warm by making your own heat takes a ton of energy. And that brings up a paradox, because creating your own...

Could humans ever evolve to have wings? Why don’t fish have propellers? Why don’t tigers have wheels? Why don’t zebras have laser turrets? These might all seem like stupid questions (and maybe they are!) but they can teach us a lot about...

The largest pterosaurs like Quetzalcoatlus were closer in size to airplanes than birds. No flying animal alive today comes close to their huge size. So did giant pterosaurs actually fly? I went to see the fossil bones of the largest...

Jellyfish aren't the most nutritious animals in the ocean. Yet sea turtles and many other organisms get their nutrition from almost nothing else. Here's why they don't totally starve to death.

Of all the food options in the world, you'd think that feces would be low on anyone's preference list. But for these animals, eating poop can be anything from a delicacy to a health food - and yes, humans are on the list too.

Sponges might not look like particularly complex animals, but they've had billions of years to evolve their own special systems. And one of those systems might involve sending messages through their body in the form of light.

You ever see a parrot mimicking humans words, and wonder if they really get what they're talking about? They're smarter than they look - there's a lot of meaning in every squawk and chirp that parrots make. Not bad for a bird brain.

You're lucky you don't literally age faster and drop dead when you see a dead person... because fruit flies do. Here's what researchers are learning about the connection between perception, aging, and mood disorders like depression.

From the long extinct Stegosaurus, to tiny modern mice, all sorts of animals grow bits of bones inside their skin. These structures are called osteoderms, and they're often more than just a suit of armor.

If you hear birds chirping in the trees, you might not think much of the different sounds you're hearing. But as it turns out, those tweets and chirps have a lot more in common with some of our complicated rules of grammar than you might...

It's no secret that substance use disorders can wreak havoc on peoples' lives, so anything that we could do to mitigate those cravings and addictions is really important. Which is why it's such good news that research into drugs like...