I believe that the animal phyla diversified early in evolution by lineage-founding processes very different from those that give rise to new species. That is, contrary to the Modern Synthesis, macroevolution does not result from many cycles of microevolution. Prove me wrong.

Super-phylum, phylum, and subphylum (e.g., class) origination involved genes of large effect: classical cadherins->metazoans; peroxidasin->eumetazoans; epithelial-mesenchymal transformation-inducing extracellular matrices->triploblasts; fibronectin kringles & fingers->vertebrates

2/3 So animal evolution proceeded in broad strokes, by a nested series of architectural innovations tied to the appearance of novel genes whose products mobilized morphogenetic effects in new ways. (Wnt, for example, is entirely confined to the animals, and has a completely novel

3/3 protein structure.) First the animals emerged from the unicellular holozoans, then the different phyla, followed by classes within the phyla, down the taxonomic scale. Species differences are just customizations at the tips of the most distal branches. They are not on their

4/ way anywhere else, certainly not to new bauplans. Once this is recognized it is difficult to go back to believing in uniformitarianism, or that microevolution + time -> macroevolution.

5/ If species are not the units of evolution, and speciation is not the leading edge of major evolutionary change, much of the natural selection-inspired philosophy of biology centered on the ontological status of species (natural kinds?, individuals?) is moot.