They found that the lizards seem to have gone through periods of relatively slow, steady evolution, punctuated by periods of rapid change. The results are published in the journal Current Biology.

But in 1972, evolutionary scientists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge proposed another explanation, which they called "punctuated equilibrium." That is, species are generally stable, changing ...

“The trace fossil record provides valuable information about evolutionary periods when soft-bodied fauna were dominant,” explained Olmo Miguez Salas, a postdoctoral researcher at the ...

Abrupt shifts in the evolution of animals -- short periods of time when an organism rapidly changes size or form -- have long been a challenge for theorists including Darwin. Now a newly published ...

For example, over a 100,000 year period an early small grazing animal (Conacodon entoconus), ancestral to today’s modern cows, antelopes, and giraffes, increased in size over 70-fold.

Scientists have researched the stability and development of landscapes in the Wendland region of Hanover during the past Eemian Interglacial (warm period) around 120,000 years ago. The Eemian is ...

The Cambrian explosion was an extraordinary phenomenon in the evolution of life on the planet that led to the emergence of many animal phyla and the diversification of species. During this period ...

It was Darwin's great insight that natural selection was the primary factor driving the evolution of organisms. His detailed research ultimately lead to the acceptance by the scientific community ...

Photo by Joschua Knüppe Sept. 14 (UPI) -- For the majority of species living during the Cretaceous period, the asteroid responsible for Mexico's Chicxulub crater spelled doom.

Hybrid species of human, once seen by experts as science fiction, may have played a key role in our evolution. Here are 6 recent discoveries that illuminate our story.

They found that the lizards seem to have gone through periods of relatively slow, steady evolution, punctuated by periods of rapid change. The results are published in the journal Current Biology.