People traditionally think that lungs and limbs are key innovations that came with the vertebrate transition from water to land. But in fact, the genetic basis of air-breathing and limb movement was ...

The CT-scanned skull of a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish, pulled from a coal mine in England more than a century ago, has revealed the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain. The ...

Ray-finned fish, now the most diverse group of backboned animals, were not as hard hit by a mass extinction event 360 million years ago as scientists previously thought. Ray-finned fish, now the most ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Primitive fish already may have possessed the genetic wiring needed to grow hands and feet well before the appearance of the first animals with limbs roughly 365 million years ...

Earth, rocks, evolution, and fish : background information to understanding fish evolution -- Glorified swimming worms : the first fishes : origins of chordates and the first vertebrates -- Jawless ...