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Vestigiality is the retention, during the process of evolution, of genetically determined structures or attributes that have lost some or all of the ancestral function in a given species. [1] Assessment of the vestigiality must generally rely on comparison with homologous features in related species.
Ileum, caecum and colon of rabbit, showing Appendix vermiformis on fully functional caecum The human vermiform appendix on the vestigial caecum. The appendix was once believed to be a vestige of a redundant organ that in ancestral species had digestive functions, much as it still does in extant species in which intestinal flora hydrolyze cellulose and similar indigestible plant materials. [10]
The sudden startled arm-jerking response sometimes experienced when on the verge of sleeping is known as the hypnic jerk.. The evolutionary explanation for the existence of the hypnic jerk is unclear, but a possibility is that it is a vestigial reflex humans evolved when they usually slept in trees.
J. B. S. Haldane – W. D. Hamilton – Hardy–Weinberg principle – heredity – hierarchy of life – history of evolutionary thought – history of speciation – homologous chromosomes – homology (biology) – horizontal gene transfer – human evolution – human evolutionary genetics – human vestigiality – Julian Huxley – Thomas ...
This glossary of biology terms is a list of definitions of fundamental terms and concepts used in biology, the study of life and of living organisms.It is intended as introductory material for novices; for more specific and technical definitions from sub-disciplines and related fields, see Glossary of cell biology, Glossary of genetics, Glossary of evolutionary biology, Glossary of ecology ...
A deeper understanding of developmental biology shows that common morphology is, in fact, the product of shared genetic elements. [5] For example, although camera-like eyes are believed to have evolved independently on many separate occasions, [ 6 ] they share a common set of light-sensing proteins ( opsins ), suggesting a common point of ...
Vestigiality, genetically determined structures or attributes that have lost some or all of their ancestral function Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Vestiges .
This also seems somewhat less dubious, both as a human-specific vestigiality, and the the variation seems to be less possibly accidental, but actually representing different degrees of vestigiality (which is not to place any particular continent population at any hierarchical "kickass" or "loser" place on the "evolutionary scale", not even as ...