Every living species on Earth has a unique geographical range, with some being widespread and others being very narrow. Several factors shape a species’ range size – and one of them is the evolutionary age of a species. To investigate how evolutionary age is related to present-day range size, a research team led by scientists from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) compared over 26,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, reef fishes, and palms. The study was published in Nature Communications.