Evolution Traced to Sponges?

For someone who had "no driving career ambitions" and "never expected to become a scientist", Mitchell Sogin has made some pretty impressive discoveries about evolution. He set out to answer the timeless question, "Where did we come from?" For years he tried to find answers to this question by studying lineal molecular evolution. What he found was completely new to the world of Science.

Sogin has always been interested in evolution. An evolutionary microbiologist, he has been tracing the molecular evolution of some very old species since he opened his lab in 1989. When trying to determine the ancestry of species such as jellyfish, sea anemones, mollusks and starfish, he found something surprising. It appeared that he could trace the ancestry of many animals to sponges! This came as a surprise even to Sogin.

Most people think of sponges as plants. For years, scientists have even published articles about sponges in plant journals. However, according to Sogin, sponges are really animals. This might sound strange, because although sponges are multicellular, these cells do not add up to much. Sponges have no tissue, muscles, organs, nerves or brain. So how could animals have evolved from sponges? According to Sogin's research, it makes plenty of sense. Although sponges have just a few kinds of cells that are connected loosely, they can produce many different asymmetrical shapes. They are also the earliest sexual reproducers.