One of Earth’s earliest mass extinctions wiped out most ocean life during a sudden global ice age. From the ruins, jawed vertebrates survived, diversified, and transformed the course of evolution.

About 445 million years ago, Earth’s oceans turned into a danger zone. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, ...

About 445 million years ago, Earth nearly wiped out life in the oceans. Glaciers spread across the supercontinent Gondwana, ...

During these waves of mass extinction, most vertebrate survivors were confined to refugia, or isolated biodiversity hotspots ...

Discover how the first mass extinction put jawed fishes on the map, species that would later come to dominate animal life on ...

An event that seemed to condemn marine life 445 million years ago actually played a decisive role in the rise of the animals ...

A devastating ice age wiped out most marine life, yet new research reveals how this ancient disaster unexpectedly paved the ...

A study published in the Nature journal alters how the evolution of fish has been historically understood. Fossilized fish and other sea creatures have often been pivotal in new scientific discoveries ...

Researchers have traced cell origins critical to vertebrate evolution by studying a group of primitive, bloodsucking fish called lampreys. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

The study of early vertebrates provides an essential window into the evolutionary processes that shaped modern biodiversity. Fossil discoveries spanning the Silurian to Devonian periods reveal a ...