Humans exploit nearly 15,000 other vertebrate species, and 13% of them are either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. No other animal has such an outsized impact on other species.

Enter the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), an ambitious initiative designed to assemble near-perfect genomes for every one of the planet's roughly 70,000 vertebrate species.

In late September 2015 in the highlands of Ethiopia, researcher and mammologist William T. Stanley caught a tiny shrew.

Populations of monitored vertebrate species have declined 69% globally since the 1970s: WWF report Species people saw frequently as children are now more elusive, researchers say.

Nearly one third of all known vertebrate species are either used or traded by humans around the world. “We’ve become this kind of super-predator,” says Rob Cooke at the UK Centre for Ecology ...

In the most comprehensive study of animal evolution ever attempted, an international consortium of scientists plans to assemble a collection of DNA sequences for 10,000 vertebrate species.