Choanocytes and Positive Evidence for Sponge Ancestry
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A sponge's choanocytes closely resemble choanoflagellates, single-celled relatives of animals, offering positive evidence for sponges' animal ancestry beyond ruling out exclusion.
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Molecular data corroborates this resemblance, consistently placing Porifera inside Animalia alongside every other animal phylum in current phylogenetic analyses.
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"Sponges aren't really animals," per Bio 2239, isolates one missing trait while ignoring this positive evidence for their animal ancestry.