vestigial structures

基本解釋

This is why these vestigial structures are almost always removed when they begin to come in.
所以今天我們總是在它們剛剛開始長的時候就會拔掉。
Similar in concept to vestigial structures are atavisms, which are the reappearance of a structure or trait that isn’t found in the immediate ancestors.
跟退化結(jié)構(gòu)相似的概念還有返祖現(xiàn)象，它的意思是生物體身上重新出現(xiàn)直系祖先沒有的結(jié)構(gòu)或特征。
But these vestigial organs and structures, once useful in an ancestor and now diminished in size, complexity, and/or utility, carry important information and give us clues to our evolutionary past.
可是事實上，這些退化的器官和結(jié)構(gòu)在它們的祖先身上是有用的，而現(xiàn)在則從尺寸、結(jié)構(gòu)復(fù)雜性和實用性上面都逐漸退化，這提示了我們關(guān)于人類進化的重要線索。