evolutionary biology

  1. Illustration of a mouse gnawing wood. Image credit: Hans Anderson, Michigan News

    Gnaw-y by nature: U-M researchers discover neural circuit that rewards gnawing behavior in rodents

  2. Yellow Warbler, vocalizing. Image credit: Paul Danese, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

    U-M Museum of Zoology collection makes wing evolution discovery possible

  3. The robot has four legs with backward-facing knees. Each leg has three actuators, controlling hip ab/adduction, hip flexion/extension, and knee flexion/extension. Exposed wires link up to the motors. T.R.O.T is emblazoned on the case around the belly of the robot.

    Open-source modular robot for understanding evolution

  4. Slippery Rock University paleontologist Fabian Hardy and Anne Kort, assistant professor in the U-M Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, discuss data and plan their next move at the field site of Red Rock Canyon State Park. Image credit: Brianne Catlin

    Ancient American pronghorns were built for speed

  5. U-M Block M Logo

    This genetic trick gives woodrats an evolutionary advantage against rattlesnake venom

  6. Fragments of BRT-VP-2/135 before assembly. The specimen was found in 29 pieces of which 27 of them were recovered by sifting and picking the sifted dirt. Image credit: Yohannes Haile-Selassie

    Discovery gives insight into how 2 ancient human ancestors coexisted in the same area

  7. Concept illustration of spacial cognition in the brain. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney

    Brain’s GPS hasn’t changed in millions of years

  8. Microscopic fungi, baker's or brewer's yeast, are used as probiotics to restore normal flora of intestine. Image credit: Adobe Stock

    A new theory of molecular evolution

  9. A pair of hands holds a narrow walleye fish with dark green and yellow patterning above a white underside. The fish is about as long as the two hands holding it are wide.

    Fishes, young and old, are shrinking in Michigan’s inland lakes

  10. Life reconstruction of Platysomus, with open mouth showing toothplate on the floor of the mouth supported by gill bones. Image credit: Joschua Knüppe

    310-million-year-old fossil takes a bite out of fish evolution

  11. Your ecosystem engineer was a dinosaur

  12. The generational impact of illness

  13. Bite by bite: How jaws drove fish evolution

  14. The neotype of Palaeocampa anthrax from the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte and rediscovered in the Invertebrate Paleontology collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. The faint red and blue grid lines from a wax pencil can still be seen across the specimen, made by the 19th-century artist Katherine Pierson. She illustrated this specimen for Samuel Scudder in 1884. Image credit: Richard J. Knecht

    A fossil’s 150-year journey from misidentification to evolutionary insight

  15. A nodding goldenrod grows next to a goldenrod with a straight stem. Goldenrods, a plant native to North America, have evolved a defense system: they "nod" as a defense mechanism against insects that lay eggs in the tip of their stem. Image credit: Mia Howard, University of Michigan

    Goldenrods more likely evolve defense mechanisms in nutrient-rich soil

  16. A schematic of a neuronal circuit has three different groups of neurons. Blue excitatory neurons are at the top and bottom of the graphic. At top, in a darker shade of blue, are the primary memory-encoding neurons and at the bottom are light blue secondary memory-encoding neurons that are recruited during sleep. In between the two groups of excitatory neurons, there is a cluster of inhibitory neurons shown in red with its tendrils connected to both blue sets of neurons.

    A universal sleep pattern could help strengthen, separate memories

  17. The skeletal structure within the outstretched wings of a bird are visible in orange in this illustration. The bird is flying against a background of blue and green swirls.

    AI vision system reveals bird wings evolved for heat regulation, not just flight

  18. A woodrat. Image courtesy: Denise Dearing, University of Utah

    Variations in temperature and diet can affect this rodent’s ability to survive venomous snake bites

  19. U-M study uncovers secret color language of snakes

  20. Concept illustration of a pink baby onesie and a blue baby onesie isolated on a white background. Image credit: Nicole Smith, made with Midjourney

    Boy or girl? U-M researchers identify genetic mutation that increases chance of having a daughter