Friday 22 August 2008

Atavism


Atavisms are traits of distant ancestors that reappear in the modern day. In order for the trait to be an atavism, an organism's parents can't have the trait, and neither can recent ancestors. The atavism you've probably heard of most often? The human tail. It's not just a gag to pull in a Farrelly brothers movie -- it really happens. There are two kinds of human tails, however: the pseudo-tail and the much rarer, true human tail.

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