Re:Giant Pacific Octopus
by howlgarnish on Friday September 18, 2020 @08:33PM
(#24523466)
Odds are it continues to serve some useful purpose though. Us humans have a whole lot of useful organs, and only one vestigial appendix.
The appendix has a purpose:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-funct...
And another suspected purpose:
https://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/news/20071012/appe...
There doesn't have to be a use for an evolutionary trait. It can be an utterly useless feature. The fact that it persists in this fleeting moment we co-exist with it in this particular million years, only shows that a feature hasn't been rendered extinct. Yet.
But of course, I believe that biologists can construct a cladistic tree that can calibrate how long a particular trait might have been around.