Scientists find sea sponges share human genes

Scientists find sea sponges share human genes

Now I know why I feel a sponge LOL

 

That is so interesting! thanks for sharing that, hopefully they can do good with this new discovery.

 

Since the lung is basically a sponge, I'd imagine at least a few would overlap.

I'd also wager we have some overlapped anemone/coral genes since we have limbs, plant genes since the brain has a similar structure to trees, hagfish genes since we have an intestine that's similar to their body structure, octopus or other cephalopod genes since our heart is structured in a similar fashion (it's a couple put together, not just one), we have similar genes to stomatella snails due to the structure of our nails....

Now obviously we didn't evolve from all of these creatures, but if a given gene provides a useful feature, it's likely to evolve in separate species. I imagine that's especially true in more complex organisms like higher mammals, since there's methods of controlling the "feature" in such a way to limit them to an auxiliary feature with a relatively short evolutionary time line where multiple features can evolve simultaneously (nails on a person), while a small shell can define very specifically down to the genus on more simple animals, and can take just many years to evolve the simple feature (like a stomatella snail's shell).

Much work would be needed to prove this, of course, but I'm fairly sure it takes similar genes to create similar structures. Restated, I think that there's very few separate, distinct genes that would create the nearly identical structures in a biological form.

That doesn't mean the genes evolved only once; they likely have evolved multiple times, but are similar because they provide the same function.