The mystery of chordate origins has endured for more than 150 years. Shortly after Darwin's On the Origin of Species, acorn worms were discovered to have chordate-like pharyngeal gill slits 1,2 and to ...

Researchers have unearthed dozens of tiny 540 million-year-old fossilized critters, dubbed Saccorhytus coronaries, that they believe to be our oldest ancestors. The microscopic sea creatures, ...

When you think of our evolutionary ancestors, hairy ape-like beings are likely to come to mind. But a bag-like blob that is mostly mouth, has no anus and resembles a monster from 20,000 Leagues Under ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The church publishes the ...

Lynn Margulis classified the Chaetognaths, known as arrow worms, as deuterostomes. Deuterostomy is characterized by several developmental characteristics including radial, indeterminate cleavage, a ...

Our oldest known living ancestor was called a deuterostome, which gave rise to a huge swathe of life including present-day starfish and sea squirts, has been discovered fossilised in ...

Deuterostomes constitute a superphylum of animals, which includes myriad groups, from humans to starfish. Previously discovered deuterostome fossils date back to about 520 million years. At 540 ...

An international team of scientists including Albert Poustka from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin has discovered that Xenoturbellida and the acoelomorph worms, both simple ...