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Entire sea lamprey genome decoded

Posted by / February 26, 2013

sea lamprey bites man's arm

The sea lamprey is one of the few ancient, jawless species that has survived through the modern era. Now researchers have decoded its entire genome.

“Sea lampreys are amazing survivors,” says Li, whose teammate, Jeramiah Smith of the University of Kentucky, led the analysis of the genome assembly. “Even though they diverged from our lineage 500 million years ago, they give us a template of how vertebrates, including humans, evolved into the modern species that we have today.”

Full story at Futurity.

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Photo credit: Michigan State University

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