Basal metazoans are the earliest animals in the evolutionary tree, including cnidarians, porifera, ctenophores, placozoans, and extinct species. Trichoplax adhaerens is the most basal living metazoan, with a small genome and unclear relation to other animals. Cnidarians were found to split from other metazoans earlier than sponges, challenging assumptions about evolution. Mesozoans are a simplified […]