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Science 6 July 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5834, pp. 116 - 118
DOI: 10.1126/science.1142024
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Reports

Buddenbrockia Is a Cnidarian Worm

Eva Jiménez-Guri,1* Hervé Philippe,2* Beth Okamura,3,4 Peter W. H. Holland1{dagger}

A major evolutionary divide occurs in the animal kingdom between the so-called radially symmetric animals, which includes the cnidarians, and the bilaterally symmetric animals, which includes all worm phyla. Buddenbrockia plumatellae is an active, muscular, parasitic worm that belongs to the phylum Myxozoa, a group of morphologically simplified microscopic endoparasites that has proved difficult to place phylogenetically. Phylogenetic analyses of multiple protein-coding genes demonstrate that Buddenbrockia is a cnidarian. This active muscular worm increases the known diversity in cnidarian body plans and demonstrates that a muscular, wormlike form can evolve in the absence of overt bilateral symmetry.

1 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
2 Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Centre Robert-Cedergren, Département de Biochimie, Université de Montréal, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C3J7.
3 School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6BX, UK.
4 Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: peter.holland{at}zoo.ox.ac.uk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)