I’ve long been fascinated by the possibility that sponges are our most distant animal ancestor (and see here). With that as context, I recently learned about one of the better science article headlines out there: “Your most distant cousin doesn’t even have an anus.”
First off, the article reaffirms that sponges are the oldest animals:
The entire history of the animal kingdom is like a long highway, with different species exiting at different points to pursue their own evolutionary paths. And sea sponges got off at the highway’s first exit, ending up in the most distant corner of the country.
I heard about this article on the informative and entertaining “Useful Idiots” podcast (co-hosts are Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper). And, as Katie Halper points out, it’s also a fascinating article, pointing to research concluding that humans descended from sponges.
Instead of comb jellies, our improved analyses point to sponges as our most distant animal relatives, restoring the traditional, simpler hypothesis of animal evolution,” lead author and Trinity University microbiologist Anthony Redmond said in a statement.
This is very cool.
Also interesting is that animals are more closely related to fungi than to plants, as the animals and fungi lines split apart from each other more recently than did animal and plant lines (see paragraph 8 of https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061021115712.htm). Another article on this subject noted that both animals and fungi have hollow interiors, whereas plants do not. All those magic mushrooms out there (Amanita muscaria et al.) are our cousins.
Imagine how overfilled our planet would be without fungi to eat up the dead stuff. We must have planned this. lol