LUCA

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See also: luca and Luca

English

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Noun

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LUCA (plural LUCAs)

  1. (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, published 2000, page 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”, in 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 [] .

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