In biological sciences, morphology is the branch that studies the form, external structure, and macroscopic organization of organisms and their parts, independent of function. It encompasses comparative morphology, which analyzes homologous structures across taxa; functional morphology, which relates structural features to mechanical or biomechanical constraints; and developmental morphology, which examines changes in form during ontogeny. Morphological data, including body plans, organ systems, and patterning of tissues, are central to systematics, phylogenetic inference, and taxonomy, and are integrated with molecular and genetic information to elucidate evolutionary relationships, phenotypic variation, and constraints on organismal design.
A new study by plant biologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, challenges a longstanding idea that stems from the large number of flowers in the mountains of Central and South America that have evolved to be ...
Evolution
21 hours ago
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Sometime between 5.5 and 5.6 million years ago, two shell crushers squared off in the languid currents of an ancient Florida river. The fossils they left behind, discovered by paleontologists at the Florida Museum of Natural ...
Ecology
Jun 2, 2026
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Dinosaurs are estimated to have roamed Earth for over 165 million years, gradually evolving over time to survive in changing environments. Among the many fascinating groups of dinosaurs known to have lived on our planet are ...
Scientists have uncovered how the interplay between cell shape and mechanical stress influences the orientation of stomata (microscopic pores on the leaf surface) during early plant development.
Cell & Microbiology
May 31, 2026
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A recently discovered extinct bird from the early Cretaceous Period (approximately 121 million years ago) may have waggled its long tail feathers to attract mates, according to a study published May 27, 2026 in the open-access ...
Plants & Animals
May 30, 2026
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If the eastern red-backed salamander has an equivalent of Usain Bolt, Sophia Zaslow is determined to find it. Since her undergraduate years, the Binghamton University doctoral student in biological sciences has conducted ...
Plants & Animals
May 26, 2026
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The Mexican axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is famous because adults look like overgrown babies, or tadpoles, retaining juvenile features as adults and capable of remarkable regeneration of lost limbs or tails. New studies ...
The Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador are home to more than a thousand plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth—things like marine iguanas and giant tortoises. In a new paper in the journal Zootaxa, scientists ...
Plants & Animals
May 24, 2026
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There's a new T. rex in the fossil record, only this one terrorized the ancient seas. New research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, and Southern ...
Paleontology & Fossils
May 21, 2026
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Long before his days of research, Christian Couch was just a kid marveling at the butterflies in the Florida Museum of Natural History's Butterfly Rainforest. Years later, after enrolling as an undergraduate student at the ...
Plants & Animals
May 21, 2026
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