Give an example of a vestigial structure and explain how vestigial structures are significant to evolution.
Biology · High School · Wed Jan 13 2021
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Vestigial Structures
For example, most birds need their wings to fly. But the wings of an ostrich have lost their original use. Structures that have lost their use through evolution are called vestigial structures.
A vestigial structure is a rudimentary biological structure that was not rudimentary in the ancestors of its bearer. Such a structure is interpreted by evolutionary biologists as a vestige of a homologous structure that was more fully functional and often larger in the ancestors of the organism in question.