Molecular profiling of annelid myocytes reveals that the last common protostome-deuterostome ancestor already possessed a dual musculature, with visceral smooth muscles ensuring digestion and somatic striated muscles ensuring locomotion.
The foundations of genomic complexity in multicellular animals have deep roots in their unicellular prehistory, both in terms of innovations in gene content, as well as the evolutionary dynamics of genome architecture.
The genomes of animal progenitors evolved as mosaics of old, new, rearranged, and repurposed protein domains, genes and pathways and paved the way for the origin and evolution of animals.
Connectomic reconstruction combined with activity imaging uncovered a rhythmically active neuronal circuit for the coordination of ciliary activity across the whole body of a marine larva.
Genomic evidence suggests that L-gulonolactone oxidase-the terminal enzyme in vitamin C synthesis, which has been repeatedly lost throughout animal evolution-was lost in plants and other photosynthetic eukaryotes following plastid acquisition.
The recently characterized opsin group of xenopsins is likely a major player in animal eye evolution and may have been present in an ancient, highly plastic eye photoreceptor cell type.
