characteristics of the universal common ancestor
The last universal ancestor (LUA), also called the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), cenancestor, or progenote, is the most recent organism from which all organisms now living on Earth have a common descent.Thus it is the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all current life on Earth.n 2010, based on the vast array of molecular sequences now available from all domains of life, a formal test of universal common ancestry was published. The formal test favored the existence of a universal common ancestor over a wide class of alternative hypotheses that included horizontal gene transfer.