We visualise developmental biology as the study of progressive changes that occur within cells, tissues and organisms themselves during their life span. A good example of a field of developmental biology in which this concept is encapsulated is that of somitogenesis. The somite was identified as the primordial unit underlying the segmented organisation of vertebrates more than two centuries ago. The spectacular discoveries and achievements in molecular biology in the last fifty years have created a gene-based revolution in both the sorts of questions as well as the approaches one can use in developmental biology today. Largely as a result of this, during the 20th and 21st centuries this simple structure, the somite, has been the focus of a deluge of papers addressing multiple aspects of somite formation and patterning both at the cellular and molecular level.