Promiscuity in the Paleozoic: Researchers uncover clues about vertebrate evolution

[PhysOrg]

To look at how life evolved, scientists usually turn to the fossil record, but this record is often incomplete. Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), alongside an international team of collaborators, have used another tool—the chromosomes of living animals—to uncover clues about our past. The study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, reveals early events in the evolution of vertebrates, including how jawed vertebrates arose through hybridization between two species of primitive fish.

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