Towards an improved animal phylogeny: Congruence between morphology and molecules in basal metazoans

Comparative zoology is predicated on the assumption of a phylogenetic history. Today, phylogenetics relies on using explicit algorithmical methods to infer the past from features of contemporary species, with the fossil record as the only window to the history of life on our planet. A new field of research, called phylogenomics, uses large numbers of sequences to reconstruct the evolutionary history of organisms.