Genetic data confirm the marine predators have more ancient origin than simpler sponges
Courtesy of Stefan Siebert/Brown Univ.
Complex marine creatures called comb jellies should replace brainless, gutless, simple sponges at the base of the evolutionary animal tree of life, a new report asserts.
Scientists have long assumed that the ancestor of all living animals vaguely resembled sponges. Now, biologists must reformulate hypotheses on the evolution of the first animals more than 550 million years ago. “This finding makes people very uncomfortable,” says Joseph Ryan, an evolutionary biologist at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., and lead author of the study in the Dec. 13 Science.