A University of Bristol study has shed light on how lizards and snakes—the most diverse group of land vertebrates with nearly 12,000 species—have evolved remarkably varied jaw shapes, driving their ...

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The arrangement of the bones that form the joint (the articulation) between the lower jaw and the skull is a key hallmark of vertebrates. Their configuration has long been used to draw a line in the ...

If you're reading this sentence, you might have a fish to thank. Fish were the first animals to evolve jaws. They use their jaws primarily to eat, but also for defense, as tools—such as to burrow or ...

The face is one of the most distinctive features of vertebrates, diverged widely among species while maintaining a highly complex anatomical structure. Notably, mammals have a “nose” that can actively ...

The discovery of new cynodont fossils from southern Brazil by a team of palaeontologists has led to a significant breakthrough in understanding the evolution of mammals. These fossils, belonging to ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. The story of how us humans—and other mammals—got our noses may have ...

A sea lamprey, which has no jaw, has the genetic code to do so, CU researchers find. Photo by Jeff Mitton A half-billion years ago, vertebrates lacked the ability to chew their food. They did not have ...

Modern mammals evolved from within a larger group of animals called cynodonts. Their early forms had a jaw joint that was made of two completely different bones–the quadrate of the skull and the ...

Whole skeleton of Dipterus, an extinct lungfish from the middle Devonian period. Specimen (UMMP 16140) from the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology. ANN ARBOR—If you're reading this sentence ...