Sponges, some of the earliest branching animals, are multicellular but lack a nervous system, gut, and some other organ systems found in most animals, the researchers explained. And fossil evidence going back more than 600 million years suggests sponge ancestors appeared remarkably similar to sponges living today.In an effort to learn more about early multicellularity and animal evolution, the team decided to sequence the genome of A. queenslandica, a sponge species studied in co-author Bernard Degnan’s lab at the University of Queensland for several years, Srivastava explained.
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