The clade Pancrustacea, comprising crustaceans and hexapods, is the most diverse group
of animals on earth, containing over 80% of animal species and half of animal biomass. It …

Accumulated records of organic microfossils span billions of years of Earth history. The
majority of this record consists of prokaryotes plus eukaryotes of a protistan grade, yet this …

Abstract The Early Cretaceous (145–100 million years ago (Ma)) witnessed the rise of
flowering plants (angiosperms), which ultimately lead to profound changes in terrestrial plant …

Flowering plants (angiosperms) are the most diverse of all land plants, becoming abundant
in the Cretaceous and achieving dominance in the Cenozoic. However, the exact timing of …

The origin of flowering plants (angiosperms) was one of the most transformative events in
the history of our planet. Despite considerable interest from multiple research fields …

Our understanding of the earliest stages of crown bird evolution is hindered by an
exceedingly sparse avian fossil record from the Mesozoic era. The most ancient …

The popularity of relaxed clock Bayesian inference of clade origin timings has generated
several recent publications with focal results considerably older than the fossils of the clades …

The earliest fossils of animal-like organisms occur in Ediacaran rocks that are approximately
571 million years old. Yet 24-isopropylcholestanes and other C30 fossil sterol molecules …

The animal phyla and their associated body plans originate from a singular burst of
evolution occurring during the Cambrian period, over 500 million years ago. The phylum …

Nervous systems evolved around 560 million years ago to coordinate and empower animal
bodies. Ctenophores–one of the earliest-branching lineages—are thought to share a few …