Discovery provides new perspective on animal evolution

Groove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals. Biologist Mikhail 'Misha' Matz from The University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues, including Dr Tamara Frank with the Centre for Ocean Exploration and Deep-Sea Research, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) at Florida Atlantic University, recently discovered grape-sized protists and their complex tracks on the ocean floor near the Bahamas. This is the first time a single-celled organism has been shown to make such animal-like traces. The team's discovery was recently published online in Current Biology and will also appear in the journal's 9 December print issue...

Read the whole article on

More from