Vestigial Structures Whales

Examples of vestigial structures (also called degenerate, atrophied, or rudimentary organs) are the loss of functional wings in island-dwelling birds; Dec 4, 2016the meaning of vestigial is remaining in a form that is small or imperfectly developed and not able to function : How to use vestigial in a sentence.

Feb 4, 2025vestigial structures, sometimes called vestigia, rudimentary structures, or remnants, are non-functional features fully developed and functioning in earlier species but serve little or no present. Of little or less importance (definition of vestigial from the cambridge advanced learner's dictionary & thesaurus © cambridge university press) Dec 24, 2025vestigial (not comparable) of or pertaining to a vestige or remnant;

Vestigial is used to describe the small amounts of something that still remain of a larger or more important thing. Vestigial is used to describe something, especially a part of an organism, that used to have a function but has now shrunk and is mostly not used anymore. Apr 14, 2023vestigial is a term generally used to describe degenerate body structures that seem to have lost their original functions in the species over an evolutionary timescale.

Vestigial describes an organ or body part that continues to exist without retaining its original function, such as our appendix. The adjective vestigial derives from the latin word vestigium, meaning.