What is a species, and how many species are there?
A species is a distinct group of organisms and the most basic unit used to measure life on Earth. However, there’s no single definition of a species, meaning this vital concept in biology can be …
Who were the Neanderthals? - Natural History Museum
Our closest ancient human relatives. Neanderthals were humans like us, but they were a distinct species called Homo neanderthalensis.. Read Chris Stringer's argument for why Neanderthals …
What was the Cretaceous Period like? - Natural History Museum
The Cretaceous Period lasted for nearly 80 million years. Discover what the climate was like in this geological period, where the continents were and what animals and plants lived on them. …
Squirrels in the UK: what they are up to, when and why
The UK is home to two squirrel species: the Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) and the grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis).The species you are more likely to see scampering through the …
What is the Anthropocene and why does it matter?
The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human ('anthropo') and new ('cene'), but its definition is controversial. It was coined in the 1980s, then popularised in 2000 by …
Charles Darwin: History’s most famous biologist
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) transformed the way we understand the natural world with ideas that, in his day, were nothing short of revolutionary. He and his fellow pioneers in the …
Immortal jellyfish: the secret to cheating death
The hydrozoan Turritopsis dohrnii, an animal about 4.5 millimetres wide and tall (likely making it smaller than the nail on your little finger), can actually reverse its life cycle.It has been dubbed …
What is natural selection? - Natural History Museum
Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution. Organisms that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes that aided their success. This …
Where did dinosaurs come from? - Natural History Museum
The earliest definitive dinosaur is not one animal but an entire ecosystem containing a few different species. There's no universally accepted dinosaur species that lived earlier in time. …
Mutualism: eight examples of species that work together to get …
Aphids are little sap-sucking insects that secrete honeydew, a sugary liquid that is the waste product of their diet. Many aphid species are known to engage in a mutualistic relationship …