Charles Darwin

The blind side of a Remo flounder's head as it was being dissected

These Fish Transformed Their Dorsal Fins Into Taste Buds

From tasting to hunting to hitching a ride, some fins have evolved for a variety of uses beyond swimming

For rabbits and hares, females typically weigh more than males, according to a new study.

For Most Mammal Species, Males Actually Aren't Larger Than Females, Study Finds

New research upends a long-held theory that male mammals tend to be bigger than their female counterparts

The cat-eyed snake slithers in the Peruvian Amazon.

A Serpentine 'Explosion' 125 Million Years Ago Primed Snakes for Rapid, Diverse Evolution

Researchers say an evolutionary "singularity" led to several small, quick changes in snake species, from legless bodies and flexible skulls to chemical-sensing abilities

An etching of Darwin's study, commissioned a week after he died.

See What Charles Darwin Kept in His 'Insanely Eclectic' Personal Library, Revealed for the First Time

On the English naturalist's 215th birthday, more than 9,000 titles from his expansive collection are now accessible online

This year's titles include 100 Mighty Dragons All Named Broccoli, Superpowered Animals and Once Upon a Book.

The Ten Best Children's Books of 2023

This year’s top titles include an art history primer, a collection of silly poems and a mathematical word problem in disguise

Striated caracaras are falcons, but they don't act much like other birds of prey.

These Brainy Falcons Are Smarter Than You Might Think

Striated caracaras solved up to eight puzzle box problems in a new study, suggesting they are cognitively complex, like crows and parrots

Darwin's signature on the note

Charles Darwin's Rare Autographed Manuscript Could Sell for $800,000

The English naturalist was responding to a magazine editor who had asked for a handwriting sample

A page from Darwin's 1837 notebook showing the Tree of Life sketch.

Stolen Charles Darwin Notebooks Returned After 22 Years

One of the items contains the renowned naturalist's first sketch of the Tree of Life

Dusty, the author's cat, lies on a catnip patch on a supervised visit outside. She has a smaller brain than her ancestors.

Your Pet Cat Has a Smaller Brain Than Its Wild Ancestors

The researchers replicated experiments done in the '60s and '70s with updated knowledge of feline lineage

Fernanda, the Fernandina Giant Tortoise was found in 2019 on an expedition. (Pictured here) The tortoises on Fernandina Island were thought to have gone extinct from volcanic eruptions.

Meet Fernanda, the Galápagos Tortoise Lost for Over a Century

Now that researchers have confirmed the animal belongs to the previously vanished species, conservationists are planning to search the islands for a mate

While erosion is a natural occurrence that happens over time, the Galàpagos Islands are more at risk to threats of erosion because of climate change.

Iconic Natural Rock Feature in the Galápagos Islands Crumbles Into the Ocean

The top of the Darwin’s Arch, a natural stone archway, fell as a result of natural erosion

The ring-shaped coral islands known as atolls, like this one in the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean, may trace their formation to sea levels repeatedly rising and falling over hundreds of thousands of years, geologists say.

Why Some Geologists Say Charles Darwin's Theory of Coral Atoll Formation Is Wrong

Sea levels rising and falling over hundreds of thousands of years may have helped build the oceanic structures

A statue of Charles Darwin sits in the Natural History Museum in London. The scientist's book 'Descent of Man' was published in 1871.

How Darwin's 'Descent of Man' Holds Up 150 Years After Publication

Questions still swirl around the author’s theories about sexual selection and the evolution of minds and morals

Charles Darwin in 1857, photograph by Maull and Fox

Two Darwin Notebooks Quietly Went Missing 20 Years Ago. Were They Stolen?

Staff at Cambridge University Libraries previously assumed that the papers had simply been misplaced in the vast collections

Last October, archaeologists discovered the mud dock where the HMS Beagle was dismantled by using specialized drone photography

The Final Home of Charles Darwin’s HMS Beagle Gets Protected Status

The naturalist famously conducted the research that led to the "Origin of Species" on board the ship

Herbert Spencer introduced the phrase "survival of the fittest" in his 1864 book, Principles of Biology.

The Complicated Legacy of Herbert Spencer, the Man Who Coined 'Survival of the Fittest'

Spencer's ideas laid the groundwork for social Darwinism, but scholars say there was much more to the Victorian Age thinker than that

The skull of the 1.77-million-year-old Stephanorhinus rhino.

1.7-Million-Year-Old Rhino Tooth Provides Oldest Genetic Information Ever Studied

Researchers read the proteins preserved in the tooth enamel of an ancient rhino, a trick that may allow them to sequence fossils millions of years old

Historians Are Looking for Images of the HMS Beagle's Anchors

Researchers are hoping to confirm that they have discovered an anchor from the ship that carried Darwin stuck in the mud of an Australian river

Lake Malawi formed in a valley where the African tectonic plate is the process of splitting in two.

The Fishy Mystery of Lake Malawi

In the second-largest lake in Africa, fish evolution is taking place at an explosive rate. Why? Scientists are diving into the question

Though Charles Darwin is most famous for his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle and his theory of natural selection, the naturalist was, at heart, a botanist.

How a Love of Flowers Helped Charles Darwin Validate Natural Selection

Though his voyage to the Galapagos and his work with finches dominate the narrative of the famed naturalist, he was, at heart, a botanist

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