Episode 206 - Vestigial Structures

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Education, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2024

⏱️ 128 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Evolution involves the innovation of new features, but even more reduction of old features. Those reduced features might disappear, develop in a new direction, or just linger as a functionless evidence of deep ancestry. This episode, we explore how we identify vestigial traits, how they help us understand evolutionary history, and the various evolutionary paths vestigial structures can take. In the news: giant worm lizards, drumstick evolution, dinosaur poop, and pterosaur transitions. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:04:00Main discussion, Part 1: 00:36:45Main discussion, Part 2: 01:22:30Patron question: 01:56:50 Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, David. Hello, Will.
0:21.2	And hello listeners.
0:22.7	Welcome to episode 206 of the Common Descent podcast.
0:28.2	This episode, we're discussing vestigial structures.
0:32.5	A foundational and fascinating concept in evolutionary science.
0:35.6	Yeah, this is something that you deal with if you even dip your toes into biology.
0:41.0	Yeah, vestigial structures is just a very commonly used and recognized term.
0:45.7	Absolutely.
0:46.7	So we will be discussing what it means to be vestigial.
0:50.3	You know, we very famously discussed these useless body parts, but what does it mean to be a useless
0:58.8	or is that an accurate definition?
1:02.0	We'll go through some examples, discuss how we identify these structures and determine what counts
1:09.5	as vestigial, and then we will discuss the evolutionary
1:12.9	process of, that goes into something becoming vestigial.
1:17.8	This is a super fun topic.
1:19.6	It's just chocka block full of neat, weird examples.
1:23.1	And we will be discussing it because it was requested.
1:26.0	All our topics are requested.
1:28.1	This one was requested by Jamie, thylacine, Bassman, Ian, Eschavaria, Nathan, and Taterboy. Thanks, everybody,
1:35.1	as always, for those requests. Hey, listeners, if you want to submit a request, there's a topic
1:39.4	request form on the website now. You can find a link in the episode description. Check that out.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Common Descent, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Common Descent and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.