The role of fossils in dating the tree of life has been misunderstood. Fossils can provide
good “minimum” age estimates for branches in the tree, but “maximum” constraints on those …

The history of life documented in the fossil record shows that the evolution of complex
organisms such as animals and plants has involved marked changes in morphology, and …

The world's most revered and eloquent interpreter of evolutionary ideas offers here a work of
explanatory force unprecedented in our time—a landmark publication, both for its historical …

Small shelly fossils (SSFs) occur widely on the Yangtze Platform and have great potential for
biostratigraphic subdivision of pre-trilobitic Early Cambrian strata. Based on the SSF record …

The Ediacaran Period was a critical time in the history of life and Earth. Understanding the
complex interactions between geological and biological events during this interval requires …

The phylogenetic relationships among deuterostome animals have been debated for many
years, and a diversity of hypotheses have been proposed based on both morphological and …

Insight into the origin and early evolution of the animal phyla requires an understanding of
how animal groups are related to one another. Thus, we set out to explore animal phylogeny …

The Ediacaran period was one of the most important times for the evolution of life. However,
the scarcity of well-preserved outcrops of Ediacaran rocks still leaves ambiguity in decoding …

Many regulatory genes appear to be utilized in at least superficially similar ways in the
development of particular body parts in Drosophila and in chordates. These similarities have …

Winner, 2009 Victorian Premier's Literary Prize for Science Writing Among the major events
in evolutionary history, few rival in importance the appearance of animals. The Rise of …