The term “vestigial” does not imply a complete lack of any function. Charles Darwin ( 1859) used the term “rudimentary organs.” Wiedersheim (1895) popularized the use of the term “vestigial” for such structures, and such use continues today. For such structures Lamarck (1809) used the French words rudiments and vestiges. As early as the eighteenth century, Erasmus Darwin ( 1791) recognized vestigial structures as evidence for biological evolution, and such recognition continues among today’s biologists and paleontologists (e.g., Prothero, 2007 Hall & Hallgrimsson, 2008 Senter et al., 2015). Well-known examples include the eyes of blind cave fishes and blind cave salamanders, and the diminutive wings of kiwis and emus.
A vestigial structure is a biological structure that has lost a major ancestral function and is usually drastically reduced in size.
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