 Evolution has given rise to amazing diversity in the animal kingdom, from barely visible insects to towering elephants. All of this diversity arose from a single cell ancestor. This amazing fact begs the question, how did the first multicellular animal evolve from a single cell ancestor to give rise to such diversity? The multicell genome lab decided to unravel this intriguing mystery by comparing the genomes of metazoans to one of their closest unicellular relatives, the amoeba capsa spora azarzaki. Surprisingly the investigators found that many genes were shared between the two organisms. Given that the common ancestor already had a complex genetic repertoire, gene innovation alone could not explain the origin of animal multicellularity. So what could explain this evolution? The researchers at the MCG lab hypothesized that perhaps genomic regulation rather than gene repertoire was the key. To tackle this question they carried out the first integrative analysis of the genome regulatory mechanisms of capsa spora. The analysis revealed several key similarities and differences between genome regulation in single cell amoeba and animals. The primary similarities include the presence of histone modifications, conserved transcription factor networks, and regulatory pieces of RNA, all of which are important for determining whether genes are activated or repressed. These findings indicate that the common ancestor was already capable of complex genetic regulation. Then what regulatory mechanism was responsible for the evolution of animal multicellularity? A key difference between capsa spora and animals was the presence of distal cis regulatory sites in the animals which were completely absent in this single cell amoeba. It turns out that these sites, known as enhancers, are critical for the development of different cell types and tissues in animals. These enhancers may constitute the basis for the sophisticated gene regulation observed in animals, and may be the missing key to understanding evolution of multicellularity. Further analyses in other unicellular relatives of animals will be critical to comprehensively describe the evolution of the animal specific regulatory genome, which will allow us to continue to unravel the mystery of how we as animals evolve from our unicellular ancestors.