Abstract
Cover Photograph: Composite of an adult specimen of Branchiostoma lanceolatum in a sand clock. The picture represents an allegory of the slow evolving nature of amphioxus. As recently revealed by the publication of its genome sequence, amphioxus is at present the best proxy to the ancestral chordate genome, not only in gene content but also in genome structure. This might well be refl ected in its primitive appearance. While having a basic vertebrate‐like gene toolkit, amphioxus shares with vertebrates basic chordate features, lacking further vertebrate‐like evolutionary innovations as if they had remained in stasis for hundreds of millions of years. See the article by Garcia‐Fernàndez and Benito‐Gutiérrez on pages 665–675 of this issue.
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