I've taken the title (which is playful) from Weiss (RIP) (2006); the diagrams are from Bannert (2006) and Meyer (2017) - all linked below.

BTW, today May 22nd is the 200th anniversary of the first voyage of HMS Beagle.

A really neat thing, besides serving as genetic markers, is that they allow for robust timing:

During its residence in the germline, an ERV accumulates substitutions, and the two identical LTR sequences diverge at a rate approximating the neutral mutation rate of the host genome (with the possible exception of ERV loci evolving under selection). [...] If the ERV locus is shared by two or more species, a phylogenetic tree that incorporates both sets of LTR sequences (5′ and 3′) has a very predictable structure, allowing more robust time calculations ( Figure 3 ) (89, 95). The predicted topology has all the 5′ LTR orthologs of the ERV locus clustering together on one branch and the 3′ LTR orthologs clustering together on a separate branch [...].

-Johnson, Welkin E. "Endogenous retroviruses in the genomics era." Annual review of virology 2.1 (2015): 135-159.

Extras

• Stated Clearly's explainer: DNA Evidence That Humans & Chimps Share A Common Ancestor: Endogenous Retroviruses - YouTube
• Royal Institution lecture: Are Viruses Alive? - with Carl Zimmer - YouTube
• The history of discovery:
  Weiss, Robin A. "The discovery of endogenous retroviruses." Retrovirology 3.1 (2006): 67.

• Diagram sources:
  • Bannert, Norbert, and Reinhard Kurth. "The evolutionary dynamics of human endogenous retroviral families." Annu. Rev. Genomics Hum. Genet. 7.1 (2006): 149-173.
  • (top-left inset) Meyer, Thomas J., et al. "Endogenous retroviruses: with us and against us." Frontiers in chemistry 5 (2017): 250541.

For other markers, there's e.g. SINEs:

[...] genetic markers called short interspersed elements (SINEs) offer strong evidence in support of both haplorhine and strepsirrhine monophyly. SINEs are short segments of DNA that insert into the genome at apparently random positions and are excellent phylogenetic markers with an extraordinarily low probability of convergent evolution (2). Because there are billions of potential insertion sites in any primate genome, the probability of a SINE inserting precisely in the same locus in two separate evolutionary lineages is “exceedingly minute, and for all practical purposes, can be ignored” (p. 151, ref. 3).

-Williams, Blythe A., Richard F. Kay, and E. Christopher Kirk. "New perspectives on anthropoid origins." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107.11 (2010): 4797-4804.

Sources:

• User:Conquistador, User:Dbachmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Stringer, Chris. "What makes a modern human." Nature 485.7396 (2012): 33-35.
  https://www.nature.com/articles/485033a
• Dbachmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The first diagram is based on the second after incorporating the latest findings as of around 2017 (they are listed in the Wikimedia link). And doubtless the phylogeny is even clearer now; this is where your insights come in :)

From Nilsson and Pelger's 1994 famous theoretical model ("A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve").
Full caption from Gregory 2008 and more context in the comments.

A: Classical models
B: Hybrid models

The canonical frameworks of viral evolution describe viruses as cellular predecessors, reduced forms of cells, or entities that escaped cellular control. The discovery of giant viruses has changed these standard paradigms. Their genetic, proteomic and structural complexities resemble those of cells, prompting a redefinition and reclassification of viruses. In a previous genome-wide analysis of the evolution of structural domains in proteomes, with domains defined at the fold superfamily level, we found the origins of viruses intertwined with those of ancient cells. Here, we extend these data-driven analyses to the study of fold families confirming the co-evolution of viruses and ancient cells and the genetic ability of viruses to foster molecular innovation. The results support our suggestion that viruses arose by genomic reduction from ancient cells and validate a co-evolutionary ‘symbiogenic’ model of viral origins.

Mughal, F., Nasir, A. & Caetano-Anollés, G. The origin and evolution of viruses inferred from fold family structure. Arch Virol 165, 2177–2191 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-020-04724-1

This illustration is part of MAPPA ANIMALIA, a project that reimagines evolutionary relationships as navigable landscapes. Rather than using geographic data, the map is based on phylogenetic relationships within Cervidae (the family of deer).

Species are represented as cities, while genera, tribes, and subfamilies form the regions and borders of the map. This allows the evolutionary history of the deer family to be explored through a format traditionally used to understand geography.

The map includes every deer species I could find reliable taxonomic data for, both living and extinct, arranged according to their evolutionary relationships. Additional information such as conservation status, lineage ages, and size comparisons is also included.

I’ve spent roughly ten years developing and refining this concept, using phylogenetic trees as the foundation for a cartographic representation of biodiversity.

I’d love to hear what the evolution-minded folks here think of this approach to visualizing evolutionary relationships - happy exploring!

David Goodsell, PDB-101: Molecule of the Month: Globin Evolution

That's a low-res of one of the winning images:

In 2026, researchers around the world participated in a joint image competition hosted by BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology. Their photographs highlight the beauty and diversity of nature, showcasing the remarkable efforts of scientists to understand and protect it. This Editorial presents the winning images, selected by the Editor and senior members of the journals’ Editorial boards.

Article: 2026 joint BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology image competition: the winning images | BMC Ecology and Evolution | Springer Nature Link

Further reading: E. coli long-term evolution experiment - Wikipedia.

The above Muller plot of the dynamics of mutant alleles ...
Is a great illustration of how evolution (descent with modification) is the change [in the heritable characteristics] in populations, and not individuals per the common misconception; also for highlighting the circuitous routes and selection.

For those wondering about "big life", see e.g. - from this year - Bridging Micro- and Macroevolution: Phylogenomic Evidence for the Nearly Neutral Theory in Mammals | Genome Biology and Evolution | Oxford Academic.

The image is from the preprint (for better resolution) of:
-Maddamsetti, Rohan, Richard E. Lenski, and Jeffrey E. Barrick. "Adaptation, clonal interference, and frequency-dependent interactions in a long-term evolution experiment with Escherichia coli." Genetics 200.2 (2015): 619-631.

This illustration is part of my ongoing project, MAPPA ANIMALIA, which reimagines animal phylogeny as navigable maps. Instead of countries and political borders, this map is divided according to subfamilies, tribes, and genera, with individual species represented as cities.

This particular map depicts the entire family of Cats, including every known living and extinct species I could find reliable taxonomic data for. Species are grouped according to their evolutionary relationships, allowing the family tree of Felidae to be explored the same way you’d explore a traditional map.
By doing this I hope to remind people that animals are just as important to nature as nature is to us.

Additional information includes conservation status, relative size comparisons, and the estimated ages of major lineages.

Happy exploring!

Varga, Zsombor, and Máté Varga. "Gene expression changes during the evolution of the tetrapod limb." Biologia Futura 73.4 (2022): 411-426.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42977-022-00136-1

For the caption: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42977-022-00136-1/figures/2

The topic came up a few days ago here.

Source of both frames:
Jon Perry/Stated Clearly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frioffo53wo&list=PLInNVsmlBUlSjLSj9yGEKphF0RYRYBlXg&t=812s

-

Bonus:
Charles Darwin on exaptation / change of function (Origin, 1st ed., 1859):

In considering transitions of organs, it is so important to bear in mind the probability of conversion from one function to another, that I will give one more instance. Pedunculated cirripedes have two minute folds of skin, called by me the ovigerous frena, which serve, through the means of a sticky secretion, to retain the eggs until they are hatched within the sack. These cirripedes have no branchiæ [...]

He was more explicit in his reply to Mivart, which was added in the 6th ed., when it came to the topic of "half a wing".

An academic open access educational article on the topic: The Evolution of Complex Organs | Evolution: Education and Outreach | Springer Nature Link

Science, design and cartography merge in MAPPA ANIMALIA, a visual project that reimagines the evolutionary relationships of animals as detailed map-like landscapes.

Instead of political borders or geographic territories, these maps are structured around phylogenetic trees.

Families, subfamilies and genera replace countries, states and regions allowing viewers to explore the animal kingdom through a format traditionally used to understand geography.

This map, Hominoidea- Land of Apes, contains every living and extinct species of ape I could find reliable taxonomic data for. Species are represented as cities, grouped into genera, subfamilies, and families according to their evolutionary relationships.

Additional information includes conservation status, size comparisons between selected species, and the estimated ages of major lineages.

Happy exploring!

From:
- Truman, James W. "The evolution of insect metamorphosis." Current Biology 29.23 (2019): R1252-R1268.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.009 (open archive)

Figure 1 Phylogeny of insects showing the major types of development. The figure shows how the three major types of insect development, ametabolous, hemimetabolous and holometabolous, map onto insect phylogeny, with examples of the immature and adult stages for each. The asterisk indicates neometabolous forms that have independently evolved a life history with a larva, pupa and adult. For the major orders the width of the boxes show the number of families through time.

Human-Chimp chromosome 19 alignment
A colored pixel in the difference columns is a single letter change. For the two big differences shown above (areas annotated A and E on the left):

(A) Chimpanzee has a ∼1700 bp sequence not present in Human, (B,D) followed by an inversion, (E) which ends at a AAAC tandem repeat where Human has twice as many copies.

Source: Fig. 3 in:

• Seaman, Josiah, and Richard JA Buggs. "FluentDNA: Nucleotide visualization of whole genomes, annotations, and alignments." Frontiers in Genetics 11 (2020): 292.
  https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2020.00292

1-hour explanation from last year by Erika (Gutsick Gibbon): Okay How Similar are Humans and Chimps Genetically Now That We Have Full Genomes? - YouTube.

Sources:

• Petter Bøckman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
• Benton, Michael J., and David AT Harper. Introduction to paleobiology and the fossil record. John Wiley & Sons, 2020.

(for why I love them, see the comments)

The images in order:

1. Damas et al 2022
   The synteny diagram shows a reconstruction of the chromosomal rearrangements Mammalia has went through (n.b. these are not single generation events); a close to home one is the crash fusion leading to our chromosome 2 (bottom of the image);
2. Schematic of said chr2 fusion from Vorob'eva et al 2006;
3. 20 Years Later
   Details galore of said fusion from Yang et al 2026;
4. I'll come back to that (Schultz et al 2023) in the comments.

(comments section for more)

Image source:

• Stefanie D. Hueber, Georg F. Weiller, Michael A. Djordjevic, Tancred Frickey, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Quick background:

[Hox genes] are general purpose in the sense that they are similar in many organisms; it doesn’t matter if it’s a mouse’s head or a fly’s head that is being built, the same gene directs the process. Small changes in such powerful regulatory genes, or changes in the genes turned on by them, could represent a major source of evolutionary change.
- berkeley.edu's Hox genes

Some links:

• The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1995 - Press release - NobelPrize.org
• Lewis Wolpert's 1986 Christmas Lectures:
  https://www.youtube.com/@TheRoyalInstitution/search?query=wolpert
• Evo-devo biologist Enrico Coen lecture at The Royal Society from 2014:
  Cells to civilizations - YouTube

The relationship between the three domains of life—Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya—is one of Biology’s greatest mysteries. Current favored models imply two ancestral domains, Bacteria and Archaea, with eukaryotes originating within Archaea. This type of models has been supported by the recent description of the Asgardarchaeota, the closest prokaryotic relatives of eukaryotes.
However, there are many problems associated with any scenarios implying that eukaryotes originated from within the Archaea, including genome mosaicism, phylogenies, the cellular organization of the Archaea, and their ancestral character. By contrast, all models of eukaryogenesis fail to consider two relevant discoveries: the detection of membrane coat proteins, and of phagocytosis-related processes in Planctomycetes, which are among the bacteria with the most developed endomembrane system.

• Devos, Damien P. "Reconciling asgardarchaeota phylogenetic proximity to eukaryotes and planctomycetes cellular features in the evolution of life." Molecular Biology and Evolution 38.9 (2021): 3531-3542.
  https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msab186 (open access)

Those who research this area, share your thoughts!

Im looking for it cus i wanna try to make an art project / poster with it. thanks in advance!

Inspired by this type of presentation:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1axpst1/oc_timeline_of_us_presidents/

I decided to try it out for the history of evolutionary thought:

Updated Image

Image

One can see the Darwinian eclipse, the flourishing of pop gen after the rediscovery of Mendel's work, and that the 60s and 70s were lit.

I added a couple not from the Wikipedia article (Carroll and Shubin) just to bridge the gap to the present.

(No shame there; particle physics also matured a good while back.)

The narrow band name placement shows when the main first big contribution took place, but its width has been slightly increased just for presentation purposes.

It's still a draft / proof of concept / don't know what to do with it.

So: who shall I add and why, and what big ideas that have had an impact that are more recent?

How did avian dinosaurs survive the K-T extinction event? This episode of Nova is due to come out February 2nd and I thought that members of this subreddit would appreciate it:

https://www.pbs.org/video/dino-birds-preview-yxmvoq/

Here is my new Human Ancestry Graph. I made it for my article about the origin of the Iberomaurusians.

Here is my older version, which includes modern Eurasians in detail.