According to Darwin, the omb jellies were the first to evolve

Image courtesy of Shutterstock/SaskiaAcht. 

Joel Kontinen

Were sponges  or comb jellies the first to split from the Darwinian animal family tree? New  research points, points strongly to comb jellies – but not all researchers are convinced.

According to Darwinism, all animals alive today are thought to be descended from a common ancestor that lived more than 600 million years ago. Until recently, researchers thought that sponges were the first group to split from this common ancestor and begin evolving separately. The next group to diverge from the animal family tree was then comb jellies.

However, this idea was challenged by a 2008 study based on genomes. It found that comb jellies appeared to have split off before sponges. Since then, papers using similar methods to argue both sides have flown back and forth “like a ping-pong match”, says Darrin Schultz at the University of Vienna in Austria. 

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Source:  

Dinneen,James. 2023,  Comb jellies, not sponges, might be the oldest animal group after  all,  New Scientist.  17 May,