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In the foregoing examples the vestigiality is generally the (sometimes incidental) result of adaptive evolution. However, there are many examples of vestigiality as the product of drastic mutation, and such vestigiality is usually harmful or counter-adaptive. One of the earliest documented examples was that of vestigial wings in Drosophila. [21]
Arrows show the vestigial structure called Darwin's tubercle. In the context of human evolution, vestigiality involves those traits occurring in humans that have lost all or most of their original function through evolution. Although structures called vestigial often appear functionless, they may retain lesser functions or develop minor new ones.
In such a case, a shift in the time a trait is allowed to develop before it is fixed can bring forth an ancestral phenotype. [5] Atavisms are often seen as evidence of evolution. [6] In social sciences, atavism is the tendency of reversion: for example, people in the modern era reverting to the ways of thinking and acting of a former time.
Evolution in organisms occurs through changes in heritable characteristics—the inherited characteristics of an organism. In humans, for example, eye colour is an inherited characteristic and an individual might inherit the "brown-eye trait" from one of their parents. [21]
Also called functionalism. The Darwinian view that many or most physiological and behavioral traits of organisms are adaptations that have evolved for specific functions or for specific reasons (as opposed to being byproducts of the evolution of other traits, consequences of biological constraints, or the result of random variation). adaptive radiation The simultaneous or near-simultaneous ...
The theory of evolution is widely accepted among the scientific community, serving to link the diverse speciality areas of biology. [19] Evolution provides the field of biology with a solid scientific base. The significance of evolutionary theory is summarised by Theodosius Dobzhansky as "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of ...
Scientific literature concerning vestigial structures abounds. One study compiled 64 examples of vestigial structures found in the literature across a wide range of disciplines within the 21st century. [73] The following non-exhaustive list summarizes Senter et al. alongside various other examples:
Specific examples of class-level transitions are: tetrapods and fish, birds and dinosaurs, and mammals and "mammal-like reptiles". The term "missing link" has been used extensively in popular writings on human evolution to refer to a perceived gap in the hominid evolutionary record. It is most commonly used to refer to any new transitional ...