A completely new order of marine sponges has been found by researchers at the Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University. The sponge order, named Vilesida, produces substances that could be used in drug ...

MIT geochemists offer compelling evidence that ancient sea sponges were Earth's first animals, emerging over 541 million years ago. By analysing chemical fossils in rocks, researchers identified ...

Who came first – sponges or comb jellies? A new study reaffirms that sponges are the oldest animal phylum – and restores the classical view of early animal evolution, which recent molecular analyses ...

Simple animal life may have existed in Earth’s oceans 890 million years ago, according to new research. Recently discovered fossils belonging to ancient sponges might be the earliest known remnants of ...

Scientists from the University of California, Riverside, are claiming to have discovered the oldest known animal fossil—an ancient sea sponge that emerged between 660 million and 635 million years ago ...

Most genes involved in complex processes are present in sponges, new research shows. Sponges or Porifera -- there are over 8,000 species currently recognised -- are the most basal phylum of metazoans.

Recently found primitive sponge fossils from South Australia suggest that animals have been on Earth for at least 650 million years. This discovery pushes back the fossil record for animals by about ...

All animals–from corgis to Greenland sharks, from dog ticks to toucans to you–descend from a common ancestor. The fossil record of animals, which runs back over 600 million years, can help us travel ...