Now, research by Jiang and his colleagues published today (July 7) in Science concludes that yunnanozoans may be among the earliest vertebrates. Vertebrates are thought to have emerged during the ...

OUTSIDE Java, which has yielded many important finds of fossil remains from the Pithecanthropus group of mankind and an abundance of fossil vertebrates, as well as two distinct palæolithic ...

And since placodes buzz with genes that also sculpt teeth and fish scales, some scientists think that placodes arose in the earliest vertebrates—a “remarkable conservatism,” argues ...

One of the first vertebrates that may have ventured onto land, whose remains date from about 364 million years ago, is called Ichthyostega. Although fishlike in many ways, it had robust bony legs ...

These joints are present in land vertebrates and bony fish, suggesting this feature had evolved in the common ancestors of these groups, but it remains unclear when in early vertebrate evolution ...

The researchers also studied fossils of extinct fishes dating back almost 400 million years and saw evidence that some of the oldest jawed fishes had bones with joint cavities for articulated ...

A few decades ago, they made a surprising discovery: The oxygen-poor environment of the ancient oceans not only preserved the bones of early vertebrates, it also preserved their soft tissue and organs ...

While the common ancestor of vertebrates with synovial joints is still a mystery, the oldest specimen with evidence of these ...