Skip to main content

Tag Evolution

The eyes are a gateway to evolution… of daddy longlegs at least.

February 28, 2024

While some people may first associate daddy longlegs with well, their legs, researchers from the Department of Integrative Biology have been especially focused on the arachnids’ eyes and what they can tell us about their evolution.

Small Wyoming dinosaur helps rewrite the evolutionary story of birds, flight

July 10, 2019

A dinosaur found in Wyoming is helping UW–Madison researchers rewrite the family history of dinosaurs and modern birds.

Putting the sloth in sloths: Arboreal lifestyle drives slow motion pace

July 20, 2016

Tree sloths have a unique lifestyle: They make the canopy their home and subsist solely on a diet of leaves. Their slow motion lifestyle, according to a new study from UW–Madison scientists, is the direct result of the animal’s adaption to its arboreal niche.

Mara McDonald, ‘quintessential boundary crosser,’ dies at 68

July 14, 2016

Although the longtime assistant administrator in the Laboratory of Genetics and J.F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution retired from the university last year, she continued to touch lives.

Lewis Thomas Prize to be awarded to Wisconsin’s Sean Carroll

January 28, 2016

Carroll was instrumental in building the field of evolutionary developmental biology, known colloquially as evo devo.

Study finds people transformed how species associated after 300 million years

December 16, 2015

The researchers found a surprising and very recent shift away from the steady relationship among species.

Darwin Day celebration focuses on islands, isolation

February 9, 2015

What do Madagascar and Jurassic Park have in common? Both are island-based evolutionary “experiments” that will be highlighted in this year’s Darwin Day celebrations, sponsored by the J.F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution at UW–Madison and its partners. “Darwin Day 2015: Islands and Isolation” will run all day Thursday, Feb. 12, and focus on the unique opportunity that islands provide to witness evolution and the diversity of life.

Anthropologist, ‘underground astronaut’ strike fossil gold in South Africa dig

December 6, 2013

Squeezing through a gap called the International Postbox and climbing the jagged Dragon's Back were not in Alia Gurtov's plans for the fall semester, but she made an exception in order to participate in a wildly successful archaeological expedition into a South African cave.