Super innacurate title, it's about the first to branch off from the common ancestor of all animals - which was a couple billion years after the LUCA for all life!
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
19 points (100.0% liked)
Science
13301 readers
46 users here now
Studies, research findings, and interesting tidbits from the ever-expanding scientific world.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
For years, debate had raged over whether the first to diverge was the sea sponge or the comb jelly.
Which means that we have a winner! The sister to all other animals, the first to branch off, and the most genetically isolated animal is … drumroll please … the comb jelly!
Good to know.
Even then, it's much more likely that many other types of animals diverged earlier, and simply left no ancestors. Comb jellies are merely the first to have left surviving descendants for this long.
That's very cool
view more: next ›