Central to this debate is the question of which group represents the first branch of the animal family tree: sponges, the simple filter-feeders, or ctenophores, also known as comb jellies ...

“It’s very exciting because there’s been a lot of debate about early animal evolution,” said John Finnerty, a professor of biology at Boston University, who was not involved in the study. Part of the ...

Researchers have created a way to see your family tree as a movie rather than a still portrait by tracing where your ancestors moved across the globe over time. The statistical method can also be used ...

The study, published in Science, reconstructs the family tree of mollusks and provides ... of the most evolutionarily successful groups of animals on Earth," says Professor Juan Moles, from ...