... and it wasn't even multicellular https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2018/01/31/581874421/be-humbled-our-oldest-ancestors-were-single-celled-organisms https:

... and it wasn't even multicellular https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2018/01/31/581874421/be-humbled-our-oldest-ancestors-were-single-celled-organisms https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2018/01/31/581874421/be-hu... I do wonder how many "single ancestor" bottlenecks humans and other species have evolved through. That said, I do wonder how sound the research above is. It seems that lateral gene transfer resulting from, say, the first viral pandemic, could be responsible for a common snippet present in all surviving life billions of years later.