Biology’s big bang had a long fuse: Animals started evolving long before showing up as fossils

Biology’s big bang had a long fuse: Animals started evolving long before showing up as fossils

A new effort to date the early history of modern animals finds a lot of evolutionary dawdling.

The last common ancestor of all living animals probably arose nearly 800 million years ago, a multidisciplinary research team reports in the Nov. 25Science. From that common ancestry, various animal lineages diverged and evolved on their own paths. Yet the major animal groups living today didn’t arise until roughly 200 million years later, in an exuberant burst of forms preserved in fossils during what’s called the Cambrian explosion.

Predators Drive Evolution Of Poison Dart Frogs’ Skin Patterns

Predators Drive Evolution Of Poison Dart Frogs’ Skin Patterns

Natural selection has played a role in the development of the many skins patterns of the tiny Ranitomeya imitator poison dart frog, according to a study that will be published in an upcoming edition of American Naturalist by University of Montreal biologist Mathieu Chouteau. The researcher’s methodology was rather unusual: on three occasions over three days, at two different sites, Chouteau investigated the number of attacks that had been made on fake frogs, by counting how many times that had been pecked. Those that were attacked the least looked like local frogs, while those that came from another area had obviously been targeted.

Researchers make the case that modern life sprang from early mega-organism

Researchers make the case that modern life sprang from early mega-organism

 A lot of work has been done over the years to nail down the origins of life, with much speculation given to whatever first bit of “life” appeared from what was before, nothing but non-living material. Unfortunately, evidence of such life has long vanished leaving researchers to try to piece together what might have happened afterwards by rewinding the genetic tape so to speak.

The first hairy microbes: New fossils reveal oldest known ciliates

The first hairy microbes: New fossils reveal oldest known ciliates

MIT researchers have found hundreds of tiny fossils of the first known ciliates. The ciliates, named tintinnids, resided in hard, flask-shaped shells with bubbled exteriors that likely help them float. Image: Tanja Bosak

Do animals really know right from wrong?

Link: Do animals really know right from wrong?

Justice for all
Bekoff is a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and co-founder (with primatologist Jane Goodall) of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. His extensive field research has led him to believe that morality is an evolved trait, rather than a system created by humans, and that it evolved early in the history of mammals.

Watch Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (2009) video

Link: Watch Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (2009) video