Cell & Developmental Biology
Open Access

Abstract

Introduction to Larval Transfer

Donald I Williamson

The larval transfer theory challenges the assumption that larvae and adults gradually evolved from common ancestors. It claims that larvae were later additions to life histories. Instead of evolving from within the same lineages as their associated adults, larvae are adult forms from foreign taxa that were transferred by hybridization. Larval transfer offers explanations for many anomalies in animal development, as shown here by examples from insects and echinoderms. Hybridogenesis (evolution by hybridization) and symbiogenesis (evolution by symbiosis) are examples of evolution by merger of lineages. They are quite distinct from Darwinian ‘descent with modification’, which is evolution within separate lineages.