Early rise of animals questioned by new discovery on sponge biomarkers

Mar 4, 2019

Unicellular algae of the Rhizaria family. Photo: Fabrice Not

Fossils, molecules and genes disagree on the rise of early animals. A large international team of researchers around Christian Hallmann and Benjamin Nettersheim, both from MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry now found new molecular clues suggesting that sponges, belonging to our earliest ancestors, may have appeared much later than commonly assumed.

Original publication

Press release