It’s hard not to relate to the little insects that carnivorous plants like the Cape sundew, Venus flytraps and pitcher plants ...

Only animals that evolved to live solely on land ever developed claws. The earliest vertebrates -- fish and amphibians — never developed hard nails and remained dependent on watery environments ...

Only animals that evolved to live solely on land ever developed claws. The earliest vertebrates -- fish and amphibians – never developed hard nails and remained dependent on watery environments ...

This image provided by Prof. Per Erik Ahlberg shows a slab of sandstone found near Melbourne, Australia preserving fossil footprints from a reptile-like animal that lived around 350 million years ago.

Only animals that evolved to live solely on land ever developed claws. The earliest vertebrates — fish and amphibians – never developed hard nails and remained dependent on watery environments ...

One possibility is that intelligence in vertebrates — animals with backbones, including mammals and birds — evolved once. In that case, both groups would have inherited the complex neural pathways ...

Only animals that evolved to live solely on land ever developed claws. The earliest vertebrates — fish and amphibians – never developed hard nails and remained dependent on watery environments ...

Only animals that evolved to live solely on land ever developed claws. The earliest vertebrates — fish and amphibians – never developed hard nails and remained dependent on watery environments ...

Only animals that evolved to live solely on land ever developed claws. The earliest vertebrates — fish and amphibians – never developed hard nails and remained dependent on watery environments ...

The discovery suggests that after the first animals emerged from the ocean around 400 million years ago, they evolved the ability to live exclusively on land much faster than previously assumed.