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the fossil record |
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#29 |
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Vermiform Most of us dismiss with ease The vermiform appendices Dangling from intestine low. But some undue respect bestow. This token, this part vestigial, This remnant of use collegial, Is tag from antediluvial Time when symbionts microbial Gathered thence in congregate connubial. Present primates such as us Don’t use ancestral apparatus Shriven, as its diminution Obviates once prime direction. Its challenge then: cellulose digestion. Don’t wag tongue at me of other uses. This leftover part makes small excuses For its unwished continuity. No glory now in former function, At best its goblet cells serve up unction To grease reluctant colon. Though guttish wormform by caecum lurking May sometime repel a boarder shirking The independent life. Such strife, Though it has use (suboptimal), Is of more import historical than functional. To give it now its noxious due This rudimentary residue Oft turns pathological, Evidence, not of grand design, But of function loss over time. Those who question whence it came, Need but turn to evidence plain. The typical mammalian caecal apex And higher primate vermiform appendix Are same! —Anastasia Voight |
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