The origin of animals: Can molecular clocks and the fossil record be reconciled?

Bayesian methods outperform parsimony but at the expense of precision in the estimation of phylogeny from discrete morphological data

(2016) Joseph E. O'Reilly et al.   Biology Letters

Prospects for Sterane Preservation in Sponge Fossils from Museum Collections and the Utility of Sponge Biomarkers for Molecular Clocks

(2016) David A. Gold et al.   Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History

Microbial Origin of Early Animal Trace Fossils?

(2016) Giulio Mariotti et al.   JOURNAL OF SEDIMENTARY RESEARCH

New deep-sea species of Xenoturbella and the position of Xenacoelomorpha

(2016) Greg W. Rouse et al.   NATURE

Xenacoelomorpha is the sister group to Nephrozoa

(2016) Johanna Taylor Cannon et al.   NATURE

On 20 years of Lophotrochozoa

(2016) Kevin M. Kocot   ORGANISMS DIVERSITY & EVOLUTION

Systematic description of putative animal fossils from the early Ediacaran Lantian Formation of South China

(2016) Bin Wan et al.   PALAEONTOLOGY

Sterol and genomic analyses validate the sponge biomarker hypothesis

(2016) David A. Gold et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Bayesian Total-Evidence Dating Reveals the Recent Crown Radiation of Penguins

(2016) Alexandra Gavryushkina et al.   SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY

The origin of the animals and a ‘Savannah’ hypothesis for early bilaterian evolution

(2015) Graham E. Budd et al.   BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS

Fossilized spermatozoa preserved in a 50-Myr-old annelid cocoon from Antarctica

(2015) Benjamin Bomfleur et al.   Biology Letters

The origin of the Hox/ParaHox genes, the Ghost Locus hypothesis and the complexity of the first animal

(2015) David E.K. Ferrier   Briefings in Functional Genomics

Spiralian Phylogeny Informs the Evolution of Microscopic Lineages

(2015) Christopher E. Laumer et al.   CURRENT BIOLOGY

Uncertainty in the Timing of Origin of Animals and the Limits of Precision in Molecular Timescales

(2015) Mario dos Reis et al.   CURRENT BIOLOGY

Phylogenomic Insights into Animal Evolution

(2015) Maximilian J. Telford et al.   CURRENT BIOLOGY

Ancestral state reconstruction of ontogeny supports a bilaterian affinity forDickinsonia

(2015) David A. Gold et al.   EVOLUTION & DEVELOPMENT

Early sponges and toxic protists: possible sources of cryostane, an age diagnostic biomarker antedating Sturtian Snowball Earth

(2015) J. J. Brocks et al.   Geobiology

Bayesian molecular clock dating of species divergences in the genomics era

(2015) Mario dos Reis et al.   NATURE REVIEWS GENETICS

The oldest compelling evidence for sponges is still early Cambrian in age - reply to Love and Summons (2015)

(2015) Jonathan B. Antcliffe   PALAEONTOLOGY

The molecular record of Cryogenian sponges - a response to Antcliffe (2013)

(2015) Gordon D. Love et al.   PALAEONTOLOGY

Early metazoan life: divergence, environment and ecology

(2015) D. H. Erwin   PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Assessing the veracity of Precambrian ‘sponge’ fossils using in situ nanoscale analytical techniques

(2015) A.D. Muscente et al.   PRECAMBRIAN RESEARCH

Genomic data do not support comb jellies as the sister group to all other animals

(2015) Davide Pisani et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Critical appraisal of tubular putative eumetazoans from the Ediacaran Weng'an Doushantuo biota

(2015) John A. Cunningham et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Ediacaran skeletal metazoan interpreted as a lophophorate

(2015) A. Yu. Zhuravlev et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

The arrangement of possible muscle fibres in the Ediacaran taxon Haootia quadriformis

(2015) A. G. Liu et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Is Haootia quadriformis related to extant Staurozoa (Cnidaria)? Evidence from the muscular system reconsidered

(2015) L. S. Miranda et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Total-Evidence Dating under the Fossilized Birth–Death Process

(2015) Chi Zhang et al.   SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY

Dating Tips for Divergence-Time Estimation

(2015) Joseph E. O’Reilly et al.   TRENDS IN GENETICS

New reconstruction of the Wiwaxia scleritome, with data from Chengjiang juveniles

(2015) Zhifei Zhang et al.   Scientific Reports

Giving the early fossil record of sponges a squeeze

(2014) Jonathan B. Antcliffe et al.   BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS

Evaluating scenarios for the evolutionary assembly of the brachiopod body plan

(2014) Duncan J. E. Murdock et al.   EVOLUTION & DEVELOPMENT

Extensive metazoan reefs from the Ediacaran Nama Group, Namibia: the rise of benthic suspension feeding

(2014) R. Wood et al.   Geobiology

Cambrian transgression and radiation linked to an Iapetus-Pacific oceanic connection?

(2014) Ian W.D. Dalziel   GEOLOGY

When Life Got Smart: The Evolution of Behavioral Complexity Through the Ediacaran and Early Cambrian of NW Canada

(2014) Calla Carbone et al.   JOURNAL OF PALEONTOLOGY

Scratch Traces of Large Ediacara Bilaterian Animals

(2014) James G. Gehling et al.   JOURNAL OF PALEONTOLOGY

The ctenophore genome and the evolutionary origins of neural systems

(2014) Leonid L. Moroz et al.   NATURE

Cell differentiation and germ–soma separation in Ediacaran animal embryo-like fossils

(2014) Lei Chen et al.   NATURE

The origins of molluscs

(2014) Jakob Vinther   PALAEONTOLOGY

The fossilized birth-death process for coherent calibration of divergence-time estimates

(2014) T. A. Heath et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Haootia quadriformis n. gen., n. sp., interpreted as a muscular cnidarian impression from the Late Ediacaran period (approx. 560 Ma)

(2014) A. G. Liu et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Decoupling of body-plan diversification and ecological structuring during the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition: evolutionary and geobiological feedbacks

(2014) M. G. Mangano et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Ediacaran metazoan reefs from the Nama Group, Namibia

(2014) A. M. Penny et al.   SCIENCE

Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds

(2014) E. D. Jarvis et al.   SCIENCE

Paleobiological Perspectives on Early Eukaryotic Evolution

(2014) A. H. Knoll   Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology

The Weng'an biota and the Ediacaran radiation of multicellular eukaryotes

(2014) Shuhai Xiao et al.   National Science Review

Rates of Phenotypic and Genomic Evolution during the Cambrian Explosion

(2013) Michael S.Y. Lee et al.   CURRENT BIOLOGY

The Genome of the Ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi and Its Implications for Cell Type Evolution

(2013) J. F. Ryan et al.   SCIENCE

Molecular analyses of dinosaur osteocytes support the presence of endogenous molecules

(2012) Mary Higby Schweitzer et al.   BONE

The dawn of animal skeletogenesis: Ultrastructural analysis of the Ediacaran metazoan Corumbella werneri

(2012) L.V. Warren et al.   GEOLOGY

The oldest evidence of bioturbation on Earth

(2012) Vladimir Rogov et al.   GEOLOGY

The advent of hard-part structural support among the Ediacara biota: Ediacaran harbinger of a Cambrian mode of body construction

(2012) E. C. Clites et al.   GEOLOGY

Formation of the ‘Great Unconformity’ as a trigger for the Cambrian explosion

(2012) Shanan E. Peters et al.   NATURE

Tube construction and life mode of the late Ediacaran tubular fossil Gaojiashania cyclus from the Gaojiashan Lagerstätte

(2012) Yaoping Cai et al.   PRECAMBRIAN RESEARCH

Trace fossil evidence for Ediacaran bilaterian animals with complex behaviors

(2012) Zhe Chen et al.   PRECAMBRIAN RESEARCH

Phylogenomic datasets provide both precision and accuracy in estimating the timescale of placental mammal phylogeny

(2012) M. dos Reis et al.   PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

A Total-Evidence Approach to Dating with Fossils, Applied to the Early Radiation of the Hymenoptera

(2012) Fredrik Ronquist et al.   SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY

Paleoecology of the earliest skeletal metazoan communities: Implications for early biomineralization

(2011) Rachel A. Wood   EARTH-SCIENCE REVIEWS

Eoandromeda and the origin of Ctenophora

(2011) Feng Tang et al.   EVOLUTION & DEVELOPMENT

An early Ediacaran assemblage of macroscopic and morphologically differentiated eukaryotes

(2011) Xunlai Yuan et al.   NATURE

Paleontological evidence for the supposed precambrian occurrence of mollusks

(2011) A. Yu. Ivantsov   PALEONTOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Feeding traces of proarticulata—the Vendian metazoa

(2011) A. Yu. Ivantsov   PALEONTOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Fossilized Nuclei and Germination Structures Identify Ediacaran "Animal Embryos" as Encysting Protists

(2011) T. Huldtgren et al.   SCIENCE

The Cambrian Conundrum: Early Divergence and Later Ecological Success in the Early History of Animals

(2011) D. H. Erwin et al.   SCIENCE

Terminal Developments in Ediacaran Embryology

(2011) N. J. Butterfield   SCIENCE

A placozoan affinity for Dickinsonia and the evolution of late Proterozoic metazoan feeding modes

(2010) Erik A. Sperling et al.   EVOLUTION & DEVELOPMENT

First evidence for locomotion in the Ediacara biota from the 565 Ma Mistaken Point Formation, Newfoundland

(2010) Alexander G. Liu et al.   GEOLOGY

Improved Phylogenomic Taxon Sampling Noticeably Affects Nonbilaterian Relationships

(2010) K. S. Pick et al.   MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

Non-random decay of chordate characters causes bias in fossil interpretation

(2010) Robert S. Sansom et al.   NATURE

Possible animal-body fossils in pre-Marinoan limestones from South Australia

(2010) Adam C. Maloof et al.   Nature Geoscience

CHARNIA AT 50: DEVELOPMENTAL MODELS FOR EDIACARAN FRONDS

(2010) JONATHAN B. ANTCLIFFE et al.   PALAEONTOLOGY

Distinguishing heat from light in debate over controversial fossils

(2009) Philip C. J. Donoghue et al.   BIOESSAYS

Phylogenomics Revives Traditional Views on Deep Animal Relationships

(2009) Hervé Philippe et al.   CURRENT BIOLOGY

Remarkable preservation of microbial mats in Neoproterozoic siliciclastic settings: Implications for Ediacaran taphonomic models

(2009) Richard H.T. Callow et al.   EARTH-SCIENCE REVIEWS

Where's the glass? Biomarkers, molecular clocks, and microRNAs suggest a 200-Myr missing Precambrian fossil record of siliceous sponge spicules

(2009) E. A. SPERLING et al.   Geobiology

Biogeochemistry: Early animals out in the cold

(2009) Jochen J. Brocks et al.   NATURE

Fossil steroids record the appearance of Demospongiae during the Cryogenian period

(2009) Gordon D. Love et al.   NATURE

A new species of Cloudina from the terminal Ediacaran of Spain

(2009) I. Cortijo et al.   PRECAMBRIAN RESEARCH

Giant Deep-Sea Protist Produces Bilaterian-like Traces

(2008) Mikhail V. Matz et al.   CURRENT BIOLOGY

Eight-armed Ediacara fossil preserved in contrasting taphonomic windows from China and Australia

(2008) Maoyan Zhu et al.   GEOLOGY

The Trichoplax genome and the nature of placozoans

(2008) Mansi Srivastava et al.   NATURE

SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTION AND PHYLOGENETIC AFFINITY OF TUBULAR MICROFOSSILS FROM THE EDIACARAN DOUSHANTUO FORMATION AT WENG’AN, SOUTH CHINA

(2008) PENGJU LIU et al.   PALAEONTOLOGY

Evolutionary History of Cambrian Spiculate Sponges: Implications for the Cambrian Evolutionary Fauna

(2008) M. G. Carrera et al.   PALAIOS

Acoel development supports a simple planula-like urbilaterian

(2008) A. Hejnol et al.   PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

On the eve of animal radiation: phylogeny, ecology and evolution of the Ediacara biota

(2008) Shuhai Xiao et al.   TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION