Scientists have sequenced the genome of the South American lungfish, which is the largest genome to be sequenced.
The South American lungfish has 180 gigabases of DNA in each cell, compared with six gigabases in human cells.
The reason for sequencing lungfish is to get a better idea of what their shared ancestor was like. That ancestor was a close relative of the lungfish that evolved into the first four-legged land animal.
The findings have been published in Nature.
See the New Scientist for more information.
