Purebred dogs might look flawless on the outside, but their beauty often hides a disturbing genetic truth. For generations, breeders have prioritized traits like coat color and snub noses over genetic ...

As koalas in southern Australia have grown from a few hundred to almost half a million, the marsupials show signs of regaining lost genetic variation.

Inbreeding and the health and reproductive issues that come with are causing leopards to be more vulnerable to extinction the study found Kelli Bender is the Pets Editor at PEOPLE. She has been ...

In the study, Trinkaus notes that the “patterns and incidence of developmental abnormalities and anomalies” could provide insight into Pleistocene consanguinity. In other words, it’s likely that ...

Small populations, inbreeding, and random demographic fluctuations could have been enough to cause Neanderthal extinction, according to a new study. Small populations, inbreeding, and random ...

Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago – about the same time that modern humans migrated out of Africa. This has led researchers to believe that modern humans won the competition for ...