page_title: Capsaspora
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Capsaspora / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: English: Capsaspora's phylogenetic tree
context_page_description: Capsaspora is a monotypic genus containing the single species Capsaspora owczarzaki. C. owczarzaki is a single-celled eukaryote that occupies a key phylogenetic position in our understanding of the origin of animal multicellularity, as one of the closest unicellular relatives to animals. It is, together with Ministeria vibrans, a member of the Filasterea clade. This amoeboid protist has been pivotal to unravel the nature of the unicellular ancestor of animals, which has been proved to be much more complex than previously thought.
context_section_description: C. owczarzaki is together with Ministeria vibrans a member of the Filasterea clade. This group is the sister group to a clade comprising Metazoa and Choanoflagellata, which together form the Filozoa  (See Figure 1). C. owczarzaki was originally described as nucleariids. However, later molecular ribosomal phylogenies placed  C. owczarzaki somewhere closer to animals than the rest of nucleariids. Finally, a multi-gene phylogenetic analysis with several opisthokont taxa clearly showed that  C. owczarzaki is not a nucleariid, but part of the Holozoa. This was later on corroborated by phylogenomic analyses, one of which  situated it as sister-group to Ministeria forming the Filasterea clade, which is the sister-group to Choanoflagellatea and Metazoa.
caption: Figure 1: Capsaspora's phylogenetic tree
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