Virtual Museum

Sponges have existed on Earth for over 500 million years and are probably the sister group of all other animals. Porifera means “pore-bearer” and refers to the many pores through [...]

This case represents a strange grouping of animals collectively known as the tongue-twisting Lophotrochozoa. These animals can broadly be split into Lophophorata, which refers to a feeding structure called a [...]

The Ecdysozoa is a highly successful protostome animal group that contains 8 animal phyla which between them have over 1 million described species and an estimated minimum of 4.5 million [...]

Echinodermata   The phylum Echinodermata takes its name from the Greek ekhinos for hedgehog and derma meaning skin, referring to the spiny skin of many species.  The earliest known echinoderm [...]

Bony fish   Bony fishes have internal skeletons that are mostly made from bone.  They first appeared 419 million years ago and are the largest taxonomic group of vertebrates in the world. [...]

Birds are the most diverse and speciose group of terrestrial vertebrates. Scientists had noted the anatomical similarities of birds and dinosaurs long before their close evolutionary history was understood. The [...]

Reptiles are found worldwide, inhabiting deserts, temperate and tropical forests, freshwater habitats, coral reefs, mangroves and the open sea. Reptiles are ectothermic (cold-blooded) and regulate their body temperature by moving [...]

Monotremes Five species of monotremes, or prototherians, are alive today and all live in Australia or New Guinea. These bizarre mammals, the duck-billed platypus and four species of echidnas, differ [...]

Carnivores (Order Carnivora) are flesh-eating mammals highly adapted for catching prey or scavenging, although some are omnivorous (varied diet). As a group they date back to the middle Cretaceous, emerging [...]

Laurasiatheria is one of the richest and most diverse of the mammalian superorders, originating on the northern supercontinent of Laurasia almost 100 million years ago. Members of this group vary [...]

Atlantogenata is a grouping of the Afrotheria (literally, "African mammal") and Xenarthans (meaning “strange joints”). Despite their apparent physical dissimilarities, molecular analysis strongly suggests that they are descended from a [...]

Euarchontoglires is a superorder of placental mammals grouped together by molecular data that shows that they share a common ancestor. They are split into the clades Glires and Euarchonta.  Glires [...]

Apes are primates that belong to the superfamily Hominoidea which is split into gibbons and great apes. We are estimated to share over 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees with [...]

The Ediacaran    The history of life on Earth has been dominated by global climate changes and violent mass extinction events. Whilst catastrophic for the living, these events have shaped [...]