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Many examples of these are vestigial in other primates and related animals, whereas other examples are still highly developed. The human caecum is vestigial, as often is the case in omnivores, being reduced to a single chamber receiving the content of the ileum into the colon.
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:
An example of convergent evolution is carcinization, which is he convergent evolution of crustaceans to a crab-like body plan. Convergent evolution—the repeated evolution of similar traits in multiple lineages which all ancestrally lack the trait—is rife in nature, as illustrated by the examples below.
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.
That this vestigial response occurs even before becoming consciously aware of a startling noise would explain why the function of ear-perking had evolved in animals. The mechanism serves to give a split-second advantage to a startled animal – possibly an animal being stalked and hunted.
These additional EPMs are the by-product traits of a species’ evolutionary development (see spandrels), as well as the vestigial traits that no longer benefit the species’ fitness. It can be difficult to tell whether a trait is vestigial or not, so some literature is more lenient and refers to vestigial traits as adaptations, even though ...
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.
Animal husbandry – Management of farm animals; Plant breeding – Humans changing traits, ornamental/crops; Genetic engineering – Manipulation of an organism's genome; Hybrid speciation – Form of speciation involving hybridization between two different species