Vertebrates diverged from other chordates ~500 Myr ago and experienced successful innovations and adaptations, but the genomic basis underlying vertebrate origins are not fully understood. Here we ...

Those of you who took high school biology may remember the lancelet, also known as the amphioxus. Its simplified body plan is notable for containing a number of features that it shares in common with ...

Scientists once thought that humans must have two million genes to account for all our complexity. But since sequencing the human genome, we've learned humans only have about 19,000 to 25,000 genes - ...

The oral apparatus in lancelets undergoes a remarkable modification during larval development, especially during metamorphosis, when the oral innervation is radically altered. The larval mouth opens ...

Berkeley — The newly sequenced genome of a dainty, quill-like sea creature called a lancelet provides the best evidence yet that vertebrates evolved over the past 550 million years through a four-fold ...

In a primitive marine organism, scientists find photosensitive cells that may be ancestral to the "circadian receptors" in the mammalian retina. Among the animals that are appealing "cover models" for ...

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...

A SPECIMEN of Branchiostoma lanceolatum (Pallas) was collected during the September 1953 cruise of the research vessel of the Sea Fisheries Research Station at a position at 32° 53′ 36″ N., 35° 1′ E., ...