[ncmncm]

The last common ancestor had eyes. The same genes control development and placement of eyes. I.e., you can stick a human put-an-eye-here gene into a fruit fly, and an eye grows there.

Fun fact: death after mating is controlled by a single gene. If there were any net benefit to not dying after, one or other species would have it turned off.

[mytailorisrich]

I'm not sure it's clear how 'advanced' the last common ancestor was. From the hypothesised date, if it had 'eyes' they probably were simple light sensors:

" But our last common ancestor with the octopus was probably some kind of wormlike creature with eye spots that lived as many as 750 million years ago; " [1]

[1] https://www.wired.com/2013/10/how-the-freaky-octopus-can-hel...