The loss of a queen triggers intense battles for power among female wasps, disrupting the colony’s social structure. Surprisingly, other wasps avoid the fighting and keep the colony functioning by taking care of its most important daily tasks. What happens when a queen suddenly disappears from a wasp colony? According to new research led by [...]

Leishmania parasites appear to evolve through widespread genetic exchange, reshaping assumptions about how they adapt and spread. A parasite long thought to spread mostly by cloning itself may be far more genetically dynamic than scientists once believed. A new international study suggests that Leishmania—a group of microscopic parasites responsible for debilitating tropical diseases—regularly…

A newly described fossil goose shows that New Zealand’s bird history involved repeated arrivals, extinctions, and rapid island evolution. A rare fossil goose found in the remains of an ancient lake in Central Otago is changing how scientists understand the bird history of Aotearoa New Zealand, according to a researcher at the University of Otago [...]

Summary: Scientists have uncovered evidence that the domestication of potatoes in the Andes influenced the evolution of human metabolism. A new study suggests ancient potato farming in the Andes may have shaped human evolution in an unexpected way. Indigenous communities in the Andes were the first to domesticate the potato, turning this starch-rich crop into [...]

A new study suggests that difficult childbirth is not exclusive to humans. For decades, human childbirth has been treated as one of evolution’s great compromises. Our species walks upright, yet also gives birth to babies with unusually large brains, creating a famously tight squeeze during delivery. This idea has shaped everything from anthropology textbooks to [...]

A newly identified nematode species may have entered Europe by hitchhiking on invasive beetles, revealing an unexpected ecological partnership hidden inside rotting fruit. In 2025, researchers in Konstanz studying rotting fruit in local orchards spotted a behavior never before documented in nature. Hundreds of worms were seen stretching upward together into writhing structures called “towers.”…

The “world’s oldest octopus” was actually a 300-million-year-old fossil impostor hiding its secret in tiny teeth. A fossil long celebrated as the world’s oldest octopus has now been revealed to be an entirely different marine animal. The 300-million-year-old specimen, which even appeared in the Guinness Book of Records, was misidentified because of changes that happened [...]

Crabs may owe their famous sideways walk to one evolutionary event that happened 200 million years ago. Researchers have uncovered new evidence about how crabs evolved their famous sideways movement, suggesting the unusual walking style first appeared about 200 million years ago. The findings, published as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife, are based on the [...]

A rare fossil fish scan reveals brain features and adaptations tied to the transition from aquatic to land animals. Researchers at Flinders University have taken a closer look inside the head of one of the earliest animals to move from water onto land more than 380 million years ago. Using advanced neutron imaging, the team [...]

A long-standing assumption about evolution is being challenged by new research showing that vastly different species can rely on the same genetic pathways to develop similar traits. Scientists have discovered that evolution has relied on the same genetic “cheat sheet” for more than 120 million years, suggesting that the development of life on Earth may [...]

A newly discovered stegosaur skull from Spain is offering rare insight into the anatomy and evolution of one of Europe’s most iconic dinosaurs. A rare skull from Spain is giving scientists a clearer look at one of Europe’s most important armored dinosaurs and reshaping ideas about how stegosaurs spread and evolved. Stegosaurs were plant-eating dinosaurs [...]

A new genetic analysis of Neanderthal remains from Stajnia Cave offers an unusually detailed glimpse into a small group that lived together roughly 100,000 years ago. An international team has analyzed ancient mitochondrial DNA from eight Neanderthal teeth recovered in Stajnia Cave in Poland. The study, published in Current Biology, offers something rarely possible in [...]

Scientists have discovered that many plants emit faint ultrasonic clicks when distressed. It sounds like something out of a dark children’s story. Hurt a plant, and it “screams.” Not in a way humans can hear, but in a newly documented study, stressed plants were found to release bursts of ultrasonic sound that resemble faint pops [...]

New chromosome-level evidence suggests Medicago evolution followed a more complex, and surprising path, than previously thought. A long-standing puzzle in plant evolution is starting to come together. Scientists have used a powerful imaging technique to trace how chromosome numbers changed in Medicago, a group that includes alfalfa, one of the world’s most important forage crops. [...]

Wasps invading ant-plant systems are displacing ants in disturbed forests, potentially harming ecosystem stability and regeneration. An international group of researchers from Queen Mary University of London, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and other institutions has identified unexpected behavior in the tropical forests of Malaysian Borneo.…

A new study reveals that close social relationships can drive the transfer of gut microbes, independent of shared surroundings. Living with friends or family may subtly influence your gut bacteria, according to a new study from the University of East Anglia. Research on a population of small island birds found that individuals share more of [...]

Genetic changes enabled animals to repeatedly adapt from water to land, reshaping life on Earth. The question of how life first moved from water onto land continues to fascinate scientists. Early organisms would have faced entirely new environmental pressures outside aquatic habitats, raising the question of how they managed this transition. In a 2025 study, [...]

The nanozymes hypothesis proposes that mineral nanoparticles drove chemical evolution on early Earth, helping transform inert matter into life through catalytic and environmental processes. The formation of the first biopolymers on early Earth is widely seen as a critical step in the origin of life (OoL). However, exactly how life emerged from simple, nonliving chemicals [...]

Frequent burn exposure may have driven human genetic adaptations that improve healing but worsen severe injury outcomes. Humans may have been shaped in part by an unexpected force: repeated exposure to high-temperature burn injuries. New research suggests this long history has influenced how the body repairs damage, responds to infection, and reacts under severe trauma. [...]

A katydid changes color from pink to green to match leaf development, showing advanced camouflage adaptation in rainforests. A rare rainforest insect can transform its appearance in a matter of days, shifting from bright pink to leaf green in a way that may help it avoid predators. Researchers report that Arota festae, a tropical katydid [...]

By reconstructing ancient nitrogen-processing enzymes, scientists are uncovering new clues about how early life survived on a very different Earth. Nitrogen is essential for life on Earth, yet most organisms cannot use it directly from the atmosphere. Scientists now believe this element may also provide important clues about how life first developed on our planet [...]

Scientists recreated a life-sized oviraptor and nest to investigate how these bird-like dinosaurs hatched their eggs. How exactly did oviraptors, bird-like but flightless dinosaurs, hatch their eggs? Scientists have long debated whether these dinosaurs relied mainly on heat from the environment, similar to crocodiles and turtles, or used body warmth from a brooding adult like [...]

Africa may be the birthplace of the world’s most popular magic mushroom. Scientists have identified Psilocybe ochraceocentrata, a potent psychedelic cousin of Psilocybe cubensis, growing on grasslands and cattle dung in SA and Zimbabwe

In Lake Malawi, hundreds of species of cichlid fish have evolved with astonishing speed, offering scientists a rare opportunity to study how biodiversity arises. Researchers have identified segments of “flipped” DNA that may allow fish to adapt rapidly to new environments and eventually form new species. These unusual genetic changes appear to function as evolutionary [...]

Researchers used molecular signatures in mobile DNA to trace the evolutionary origins of the cultivated strawberry genome. Polyploid genomes form when entire genomes duplicate and combine through repeated hybridization events. This process has played a major role in the evolution of many crop plants. However, understanding the internal structure of these genomes can be difficult, [...]

Scientists may have been dramatically undercounting the number of vertebrate species on Earth. A large analysis of more than 300 studies suggests that for every recognized species of fish, bird, mammal, reptile, or amphibian, there may be two additional “cryptic” species that look almost identical but are genetically distinct. Hidden Species May Greatly Increase Known [...]

Koalas’ population comeback may be doing more than boosting numbers—it could also be rebuilding their lost genetic diversity. A new genomic study of koalas across Australia suggests that rapid population recovery may help restore genetic diversity that was lost during past declines. Researchers found that when populations grow quickly after a crash, genetic variation can [...]

A recent study indicates that aerobic respiration may have emerged far earlier than scientists once believed. Oxygen is everywhere on Earth today. But that hasn’t always been the case. Scientists think oxygen only became a lasting part of the atmosphere about 2.3 billion years ago during the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), a turning point that [...]

The largest study ever conducted on the growth of Tyrannosaurus rex reveals that the dinosaur took a far longer and slower route to adulthood than scientists had previously believed. For many years, researchers have estimated the age and growth rate of Tyrannosaurus rex by examining annual growth rings inside fossilized leg bones, much like the [...]

Scientists have uncovered an unexpected genetic shift that may explain how animals with backbones first emerged and became so diverse. Researchers at the University of St Andrews have identified an important clue to how animals with backbones evolved. This group includes mammals, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. The findings help clarify a key moment in the [...]