Scientists believe they may have identified the first animal to have roamed the Earth about 700 million years ago, a new study published in Nature revealed.
Though they resemble jellyfish, comb jellies are distinctly different creatures, and propel themselves through water using cilia instead of tentacles. They are still part of the marine ecosystem today and can be found in waters all over the world.Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild via Getty Images
There has long been a debate on which animal came first — the ctenophore or the sponge, the university said. Sponges are creatures that spend most of their lives in one spot, filtering water through their pores to collect food particles. In order to make that determination, scientists looked at the organization of genes in the chromosomes of the organisms. The chromosomes of the ctenophore look very different than the chromosomes of sponges, jellyfish and other invertebrates — alerting researchers that the ctenophore could have either come much earlier than the others, or much later.
The"smoking gun" for researchers was when they compared the chromosomes of ctenophores to non-animals.
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