How innovations such as vision, flight and pregnancy evolve is a central question in
evolutionary biology. Examination of transitional (intermediate) forms of these traits can help …

Simple Summary As a group of organisms, non-avian reptiles, most of which are the~
11,000 species of lizards and snakes, are an extraordinarily diverse group, displaying a …

Key innovations are fundamental to biological diversification, but their genetic basis is poorly
understood. A recent transition from egg-laying to live-bearing in marine snails (Littorina …

The repeated evolution of the same traits in distantly related groups (convergent evolution)
raises a key question in evolutionary biology: do the same genes underpin convergent …

Background Viviparity—live birth—is a complex and innovative mode of reproduction that
has evolved repeatedly across the vertebrate Tree of Life. Viviparous species exhibit …

Viviparity (live birth) represents a significant evolutionary innovation that has emerged in
hundreds of lineages of invertebrate and vertebrate animals. The evolution of this trait from …

This paper delves into the character concept as applied to reproduction. Our argument is
that the prevailing functional-adaptationist perspective falls short in explaining the evolution …

Dollo's law of irreversibility argues that evolution cannot revert to earlier states. It has
remained controversial ever since its inception in the 19th century. Enabled by advances in …

Live birth (viviparity) has arisen repeatedly and independently among animals. We
sequenced the genome and transcriptome of the viviparous Pacific beetle-mimic cockroach …

John Graham Kerr's zoology was in a pre-molecular age: his 1917 lectures on Amoeba (this
volume) indicate scepticism over the value of chemical investigation of how living organisms …