Abstract
Sometimes misnamed as “regressive evolution," loss of structures is an adaptive evolutionary response to changed conditions of living, which make an organ or part functionally irrelevant or disadvantageous. Consequently, under new conditions of living, an evolutionary pressure for getting rid of it arises. Disuse of the organ or part is associated with a corresponding change in behavior, which is the prelude to the vestigialization and loss of the structure. Loss of structures is generally a gradual process that starts with its vestigialization but sometimes, by evolutionary temporal standards, it may occur “suddenly.” No changes in genes or genetic information are involved in the best known and best investigated cases of the vestigialization and loss of structures.
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