A ubiquinone precursor analogue does not clearly increase the growth rate of .

The evolution of developmental rates may drive morphological change. develops nearly twice as slowly as . encodes a hydroxylase required for synthesizing ubiquinone, and mutant slow growth phenotypes can be rescued by supplying animals with a ubiquinone precursor analogue, 2,4-dihydroxybenzoate. RNA-seq data showing low expression raised the possibility that grows slowly because of reduced ubiquinone biosynthesis. did not reveal a clear reduction in the age of maturation when reared on 2,4-dihydroxybenzoate. Further scrutiny of RNA-seq results revealed multiple ubiquinone metabolism genes have low expression in . Divergent expression alone may not be a major driver of the evolution of slow development in this species.