diff --git a/docs/source/contributor-guide/parquet_scans.md b/docs/source/contributor-guide/parquet_scans.md
index c8e960a15e..3ed7d69cd3 100644
--- a/docs/source/contributor-guide/parquet_scans.md
+++ b/docs/source/contributor-guide/parquet_scans.md
@@ -62,6 +62,10 @@ cause Comet to fall back to Spark.
 - No support for `input_file_name()`, `input_file_block_start()`, or `input_file_block_length()` SQL functions.
   The `native_datafusion` scan does not use Spark's `FileScanRDD`, so these functions cannot populate their values.
 - No support for `ignoreMissingFiles` or `ignoreCorruptFiles` being set to `true`
+- Schema evolution (type promotion such as int→long, float→double) is always enabled. DataFusion's native Parquet
+  reader handles type promotion automatically, regardless of the `spark.comet.schemaEvolution.enabled` setting.
+  This means queries that would fail in Spark or other Comet scan implementations when schema evolution is disabled
+  will succeed with `native_datafusion`.
 
 The `native_iceberg_compat` scan has the following additional limitation that may produce incorrect results
 without falling back to Spark:
diff --git a/spark/src/main/scala/org/apache/comet/rules/CometScanRule.scala b/spark/src/main/scala/org/apache/comet/rules/CometScanRule.scala
index 698b68777a..46e7a860f0 100644
--- a/spark/src/main/scala/org/apache/comet/rules/CometScanRule.scala
+++ b/spark/src/main/scala/org/apache/comet/rules/CometScanRule.scala
@@ -168,8 +168,8 @@ case class CometScanRule(session: SparkSession)
 
         COMET_NATIVE_SCAN_IMPL.get() match {
           case SCAN_AUTO =>
-            // TODO add support for native_datafusion in the future
-            nativeIcebergCompatScan(session, scanExec, r, hadoopConf)
+            nativeDataFusionScan(plan, session, scanExec, r, hadoopConf)
+              .orElse(nativeIcebergCompatScan(session, scanExec, r, hadoopConf))
               .getOrElse(scanExec)
           case SCAN_NATIVE_DATAFUSION =>
             nativeDataFusionScan(plan, session, scanExec, r, hadoopConf).getOrElse(scanExec)
@@ -222,6 +222,19 @@ case class CometScanRule(session: SparkSession)
       withInfo(scanExec, "Native DataFusion scan does not support Parquet field ID matching")
       return None
     }
+    // Case-insensitive mode with duplicate field names produces different errors
+    // in DataFusion vs Spark, so fall back to avoid incompatible error messages
+    if (!session.sessionState.conf.caseSensitiveAnalysis) {
+      val fieldNames =
+        scanExec.requiredSchema.fieldNames.map(_.toLowerCase(java.util.Locale.ROOT))
+      if (fieldNames.length != fieldNames.distinct.length) {
+        withInfo(
+          scanExec,
+          "Native DataFusion scan does not support " +
+            "duplicate field names in case-insensitive mode")
+        return None
+      }
+    }
     if (!isSchemaSupported(scanExec, SCAN_NATIVE_DATAFUSION, r)) {
       return None
     }
diff --git a/spark/src/test/scala/org/apache/comet/parquet/ParquetReadSuite.scala b/spark/src/test/scala/org/apache/comet/parquet/ParquetReadSuite.scala
index 09a2308e35..03b899b163 100644
--- a/spark/src/test/scala/org/apache/comet/parquet/ParquetReadSuite.scala
+++ b/spark/src/test/scala/org/apache/comet/parquet/ParquetReadSuite.scala
@@ -984,7 +984,7 @@ abstract class ParquetReadSuite extends CometTestBase {
             withParquetDataFrame(data, schema = Some(readSchema)) { df =>
               // TODO: validate with Spark 3.x and 'usingDataFusionParquetExec=true'
               if (enableSchemaEvolution || CometConf.COMET_NATIVE_SCAN_IMPL
-                  .get(conf) == CometConf.SCAN_NATIVE_DATAFUSION) {
+                  .get(conf) != CometConf.SCAN_NATIVE_ICEBERG_COMPAT) {
                 checkAnswer(df, data.map(Row.fromTuple))
               } else {
                 assertThrows[SparkException](df.collect())