Which animal appeared first on Earth?

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Researchers have identified the animal as a comb jelly – a predator that roams the oceans – according to research from the University of California Berkeley.

Although it looks like a jellyfish, Comb jellyfish was a completely different creature and propelled itself through the water using cilia instead of tentacles. They are still part of the marine ecosystem today and are found in seas all over the world.

Comb jellyfish in the Red Sea. (Photo: Getty).

“The most commonly known ancestors of all these animals probably lived 600 to 700 million years ago. It’s hard to know what they looked like because they were mollusks and didn’t leave any direct fossil traces. But we can compare living animals to get an idea of ​​their ancestors,” Professor Daniel Rokhsar of the University of California Berkeley and co-author of the study shared.

According to the University of California Berkeley, it has long been debated which animal came first, the comb jelly or the sponge. Sponges are creatures that spend most of their lives in one place, filtering water through their pores to collect food particles.

Many people assumed that sponges appeared first, before comb jellies, because of their primitive features. But recent research has determined that while sponges appeared early, they may have appeared later than comb jellies. To reach this conclusion, scientists looked at the organization of genes in the chromosomes of the organisms. Comb jellies’ chromosomes are very different from those of sponges, jellyfish, and other invertebrates, suggesting that they may have appeared much earlier or much later than the rest.

Researchers compared the chromosomes of comb jellies with those of non-animal organisms and found that They share some genetic material combinations. whereas the chromosomes of sponges and other animals are rearranged in a completely different way.

According to the researchers, this new discovery has important value in understanding the basic functions of all animals and humans today, such as how we eat, move and perceive our surroundings.

According to VOV

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