Amphioxus as a model to study the evolution of development in chordates
Journal: eLife
Year: 2023

Cephalochordates and tunicates represent the only two groups of invertebrate chordates, and extant cephalochordates - commonly known as amphioxus or lancelets - are considered the best proxy for the chordate ancestor, from which they split around 520 million years ago. Amphioxus has been an important organism in the fields of zoology and embryology since the 18<sup>th</sup> century, and the morphological and genomic simplicity of cephalochordates (compared to vertebrates) makes amphioxus an attr