November 2017 homepage image 2
Comb jellies or Ctenophores are beautiful, highly diverse and enigmatic animals. Novel sequencing and phylogenomic analyses of representative ctenophore species, collected around the world (from cold Antarctica to hot equatorial seas), provide strong evidence that they are (i) the sister group to all other animals and (ii) resolved evolutionary relationships of comb jellies to each other including molecular clock estimates of the time of the divergence among the major animal lineages. Photos by Leonid L. Moroz and Gustav Pauley. Collage by Leonid L. Moroz.