Part 1- Past and Present: Of Fossils and Spiders
Many pieces of the puzzle that is the history of animal life on Earth are preserved in the fossil record. We’ll kick off the live talks on Monday discussing early animal fossils and what we know about how they are related to modern animals. The story begins with the old fossil collections, and moves on to the experimental lab environment with scientists studying living spiders.

Part 2 - How to Generate and Regenerate an Organism
If we look closely, we can see common themes and patterns in animal diversity. How do similar cells create different body shapes? How can one cell organise and build an entire animal from scratch? What enables some cells to regenerate missing body parts? Scientists give insights into their research, contributing to answering questions about how the body forms.

Part 3 - The Secret Lives of Sea Creatures
What kind of life did early animals lead? Did they have a similar body form from birth to adulthood, like humans, or did they undergo metamorphosis like tadpoles to frogs and caterpillars to butterflies? And which came first in evolution: the adult or the larva? Join Wednesday’s researchers who try to answer these questions by studying animals with alien larval forms.