LUCA
See also: luca and Luca
English
Alternative forms
- Luca, L.U.C.A., L. U. C. A.
Noun
LUCA (plural LUCAs)
- (taxonomy, biology, paleontology) Initialism of last universal common ancestor; the hypothesised most recent primordial organism that is an ancestor to all organisms now living.
- Synonym: LUA
- Coordinate terms: LCA, UCA
- 1999, Matt Ridley, Genome, Harper Perennial 2000, p. 19:
- Luca is now usually placed deep underground, in a fissure in hot igneous rocks, where she fed on sulphur, iron, hydrogen and carbon.
- 2011 November 26, Michael Marshall, Our ancestor, the mega-organism, New Scientist, page 8:
- It was around 2.9 billion years ago that LUCA split into the three domains of life: the single-celled bacteria and archaea, and the more complex eukaryotes that gave rise to animals and plants […] .
Translations
hypothesised last common ancestor to all organisms
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See also
- LCA
- MRCA
- progenote
Anagrams
- ACLU, UCLA, caul