Waves of extinction have ripped through life on Earth over and over again during its long history. The non-avian dinosaurs were the last to feel the burn, 66 million years ago, but there have been ...

The end-Cretaceous extinction created space in the ecosystem for birds, but also for mammals. Mammals first evolved from ancestors called therapsids during the late Triassic Period. These were tiny ...

It had quite an impact — striking with the force of 10 million atomic bombs. Sixty-six million years ago, the asteroid that slammed into what is now the Yucatán Peninsula caused a mass extinction ...

A pair of Sacabambaspis fish, around 35 cm in length, which had distinct, forward-facing eyes and an armored head. No fossils of animals like Sacabambaspis from after the Late Ordovician Mass ...

The study of extinction dynamics in the fossil record integrates patterns of biodiversity loss with environmental and biotic drivers across geological time. Fluctuations in global diversity often ...