PBS
It's Becoming Very Clear That Birds Are Not Normal
A new discovery raises an important question: from an evolutionary perspective, who really has the stranger wings?
PBS
How the Egg Came First
The story of the egg spans millions of years, from the first vertebrates that dared to venture onto land to today’s mammals, including the platypus, and of course birds. Like chickens? We’re here to tell you: The egg came first.
PBS
How Plants Became Carnivores
How and why does botanical carnivory keep evolving? It turns out that when any of the basic things that most plants need aren’t there, some plants can adapt in unexpected ways to make sure they thrive.
PBS
The Traits That Spawned the Age of Mammals
Lots of the traits we think of as defining us as mammals show up pretty early, during the time of the dinosaurs. And, in some cases, they show up a lot earlier and in things that weren’t mammals at all.
PBS
How the Smallest Animal Got So Simple
We tend to think that evolution only goes in one direction— toward getting bigger and more advanced. But that’s not always the case. This tiny, simple animal, the Myxozoans, (yes, animal!) evolved from something bigger and more complex.
PBS
Why We Only Have Ten Toes (It's a Long Story)
Today, all mammals from humans to bats have five fingers or fewer. Yes, even whales, whose finger bones are hidden in their fins. Birds have four or fewer and amphibians get the best of both worlds, often having four digits on their...
PBS
Why Did These Ancient Gophers Have Horns?
These odd rodents belong to a genus known as Ceratogaulus, but they’re more commonly called horned gophers, because, you guessed it, they had horns. And it turns out the horns probably had a purpose - one that rodents would likely...
Curated Video
When The "Combat Wombat" Became An Apex Predator
In Australia, evolution built a family of deadly predators by taking a group of cute, harmless herbivores and turning them murderous.
PBS
When Pterosaurs Walked
If you know one thing about pterosaurs, it’s that they’re flyers. And while pterosaurs may be well-known for their domination of the skies in the Mesozoic Era, they didn’t live their entire lives in the air. So how did we figure this...
PBS
When Lizards Took Over the World
Lizards are incredibly widespread and diverse but it took them a long time to get to where they are now. Because they used to face some pretty stiff competition from a group of lizard look-alikes.
PBS
When It Was Too Hot for Leaves
Plants first made their way onto land at least 470 million years ago but for their first 80 million years, leaves as we know them today didn’t exist. What held them back?
PBS
When Hobbits Were Real
Its discoverers named it Homo floresiensis, but it’s often called “the hobbit” for its short stature and oddly proportioned feet. And it’s been at the center of a major controversy in the field ever since. Was it its own species? Or was...
PBS
When Giant Lemurs Ruled Madagascar
Just a few thousand years ago, the island of Madagascar was inhabited by giant lemurs. How did such a diverse group of primates evolve in the first place, and how did they help shape the unique environments of Madagascar? And how did...
PBS
When Bats Took Flight
Bats pretty much appear in the fossil record as recognizable, full-on, flying bats. And they show up on all of the continents, except Antarctica, around the same time. So where did bats come from? And which of the many weird features...
PBS
When Ancient People Changed Their Own DNA
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PBS
When a Giant Pterosaur Ruled the European Islands
The ecological niche of apex predators was empty on Hateg Island, waiting to be occupied by something large, mobile, and powerful enough to fill it.
PBS
We Can “Bring Back” The Woolly Mammoth. Should We?
In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.
PBS
The Mystery Of The Mashed-Up Dinosaurs
How the therizinosaurs lived and evolved ended up being just as weird as their mixed-up anatomy.
PBS
The Missing Link That Wasn’t
The myth of the Missing Link--the idea that there must be a specimen that partly resembles an ape but also partly resembles a modern human--is persistent. But the reality is that there is no missing link in our lineage, because that’s...
PBS
The Genes We Lost Along the Way
Our DNA holds thousands of dead genes and we’ve only just begun to unravel their stories. But one thing is already clear: we’re not just defined by the genes that we’ve gained over the course of our evolution, but also by the genes that...
PBS
The Curious Case of the Cave Lion
A mysterious, large feline roamed Eurasia during the last ice age. Its fossils have been found across the continent, and it’s been the subject of ancient artwork. So what exactly were these big cats?
PBS
The Croc That Ran on Hooves
In the Eocene Epoch, there was a reptile that had teeth equipped for biting through flesh, its hind legs were a lot longer than its front legs and instead of claws, its toes were each capped with hooves. How did this living nightmare...
PBS
The 40 Million-Year-Old Ecosystem In Your Mouth
The hardened residue scraped off your teeth at the dentist is called your dental calculus, and your dental calculus is the only part of your body that actually fossilizes while you’re alive! And scientists have figured out how to study &...
PBS
Our “Junk DNA” Is More Important Than We Once Thought
In the search for the genes that make us human, some of the most important answers were hiding not in the genes themselves, but in what was once considered genomic junk.