The largest genome of any animal sequenced so far

The Australian lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) has the largest animal genome ever sequenced. The fish has a whopping 43 billion base pairs, around 14 times longer than the human genome — although most of its genome is made up of non-coding and repeating regions. A genomic analysis confirms that the surface-breathing fish are the closest living relatives of land vertebrates that last shared a common ancestor around 420 million years ago.