A sweeping analysis of thousands of animal genomes suggests that chromosomes do not evolve randomly but instead follow a limited number of irreversible “evolutionary highways.” These one-way genetic ...

Animals from completely different branches of the tree of life, such as insects, worms and vertebrates, independently evolved similar genetic solutions to survive on land, according to a new study ...

Climate change is rapidly altering our environment—and posing major challenges for many animal species. Whether they can adapt depends largely on their genetic diversity. An international study ...

Learn why a bank vole may hold clues as to how some animals can adapt and survive as climate change shifts habitats and food ...

Humans have become one of the world's greatest evolutionary forces. To survive our cities, animals from urban foxes to ...

In five cases where vertebrates evolved monogamy, the same changes in gene expression occurred each time. In many non-monogamous species, females provide all or most of the offspring care. In ...

Animal social behavior is an extremely complex phenomenon that is shaped by evolution. Animals, whether social bird species or solitary hunters, have an extremely wide range of social behaviours.

How did horses become some of the greatest athletes in the animal kingdom? Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine may have found the answer, pinpointing a genetic mutation and evolutionary process that ...

An understanding of the origin and dynamics of heritable genetic variation within classical animal breeding programs is needed to provide the context for understanding the contributions and concerns ...

Mammals, for instance, differ dramatically in their maximal lifespans—from the tiny forest shrew, which lives only one or two years, to the bowhead whale, capable of living for more than 200 years.