Birds are the most diverse land vertebrate on the planet, and now scientists have constructed a complete evolutionary tree of the 11,000 or so known species. This data came from hundreds of studies ...

The transition from a lumbering, heavy dinosaur body to the flight-adapted bird body plan is one of many fascinating episodes ...

A 150-million-year-old bird fossil, Zhengheornis, reveals the first step in the evolution of the short tails seen in modern ...

Professor Emily Jane McTavish and colleagues at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have mapped the evolution of every known bird species. They created a complete evolutionary tree of bird species by ...

A 150-million-year-old fossil unearthed in Fujian province has revealed what researchers say is the smallest known ...

Imagine zooming out on a giant family tree that includes every bird you have ever seen. Ostriches sprint across open plains, hummingbirds hover at flowers, penguins slice through cold seas, and eagles ...

Hummingbird pollination helped pineapples and other bromeliads evolve into one of the world's most diverse plant families.

The study found that bird species who nest in tree cavities have independently evolved heightened aggression across lineages, particularly in females. Scientists have long wondered whether evolution ...

Hummingbirds play a crucial role in accelerating the evolution of bromeliads, leading to a faster emergence of new species.

Fri, May 2, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC Those many millions of years have given birds time to evolve into some 11,000 species, and keeping track of all those species—not to mention their evolutionary history ...