Ancient sea creature points to parallel evolution with humans

London, Feb 2 (ANI): A new study has suggested that tiny sea creatures called placozoans evolved in parallel to those organisms that later developed into humans, a finding that could radically change the way we think about the evolution of species.

Earlier, conventional thinking was that simple animals, including sponges, jellyfish and corals, evolved step-by-step in a linear fashion into those with more complex bodies, such as mammals.

Now, according to a report in New Scientist, Rob DeSalle of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and his colleagues have challenged this way of thinking.

The team analysed DNA and other molecular evidence across the animal kingdom, including tiny sea creatures called placozoans.

They have found that the placozoans are the closest living thing to the ancestor of all animals.

More intriguingly, these simple creatures belong to a group of organisms that, as DeSalle's team discovered, evolved in parallel to those that later developed into humans.

Since this deep division was forged half a billion years ago, before animals developed nerves, the finding also implies that the nervous system developed twice, evolving independently in simple organisms like jellyfish and also in complex animals. (ANI)