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Concept

vestigial structure

The image depicts a skeletal structure resembling antlers, symbolizing a vestigial structure that has lost its original function over evolutionary time but remains as a reduced form.

A body part that has lost most or all of its original function over evolutionary time but persists in reduced form. The term covers everything from the human appendix to the eyes of cave-dwelling fish to the hip bones of whales. Vestigial does not always mean useless — some structures have been quietly repurposed — but it does mean the part no longer does what it evolved to do.

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