Saying that our oldest ancestors are warty comb jelliies might not sound too flattering, but itโs an improvement. Until now, our earliest relatives, the first branch in the animal kingdomโs proverbial tree, were thought to be sponges, the sessile and collagen wads.
A paper published this week in the journalย Scienceย reports that ctenophores, a phylum of animals that includes a species colloquially known as warty comb jellies, are Earthโs earliest extant animals, making them sister to all other animal kingdom phyla. The findings are a revision to the base of Earthโs animal tree, putting ctenophores where sponges had been.
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