Living Fossil

Though these creatures may seem unchanged, they've evolved in hidden ways.

As the world evolved rapidly around them, gars weirdly just stayed the same. Now we know why.

Gars have the slowest rate of evolution of all jawed vertebrates, having barely changed since first appearing at the time of the dinosaurs.

Researchers discovered an example of convergent evolution in the Peruvian and Tibetan highlander communities.

Every bird you've ever seen—every robin, every pigeon, every penguin at the zoo—is a living dinosaur. Birds are the only group of dinosaurs that survived the asteroid-induced mass extinction 66 million years ago. But not all the birds alive at the time made it. Why the ancestors of modern birds lived while so many of their relatives died has been a mystery that paleontologists have been trying to solve for decades.…

Centered around Oshima ("Big Island"), this subtropical archipelago is often referred to as a living fossil, with its unique biodiversity earning it UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Here's how to make the most of a visit to Amami Oshima.

For spending their 160 million years of existence mostly hiding in rivers and streams under rocks, Eastern and Ozark hellbenders had done pretty well for themselves.

Fossils from Wyoming reveal a relative of the living tuatara, the last remaining rhynchocephalian on Earth.

Researchers have adopted innovative means, from cutting-edge scans to swimming robots, to reveal more about how the creatures lived

In Part 1 of "Big Man, Little Countries," Josh Levin visits the smuggler's paradise of Andorra. In Part 2, he surveys the fast cars and rich folks...

When you think of conifers, tall, conical shaped trees often found in public parks or front yards may spring to mind. But these impressive trees are far more fascinating than you may have realized, as they represent just one piece of an unsolved botanical puzzle.

Ernest Shackleton left his ship behind in Antarctica. The ocean filled it with marine life, from anemones to sea squirts.

About 200 million years ago, much of Europe was transformed by a huge flood. What had been land, occupied by early dinosaurs and other reptiles, was covered by shallow seawater, from Poland in the east to Wales and south-west England in the west.

Over 4.5 billion years, volcanoes, asteroids, and climate change have wiped out millions of species.

A translation of Chapotout's article for Le Monde Diplomatique detailing the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.

This "living fossil" can grow as large as an alligator, has two rows of needle-sharp teeth, and such strong armor that it survived predatory dinosaurs.

Researchers compare new coelacanth fossils to ones that came before and after and link evolutionary changes to tectonic activity.

'There was nowhere to hide.'

The South American lungfish is an extraordinary creature - in some sense, a living fossil. Inhabiting slow-moving and stagnant waters in Brazil, Argentina, ...

"Sailors believed they grew underwater at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and it was thought that male trees uprooted themselves on stormy nights and walked to find female trees, embracing them to pollinate their large flowers."