Is the appendix our body's only vestigial structure?

If some of the people I've had to deal with lately are
any indicator, the brain might qualify. Seriously,
though, there are several apparently useless parts in
the human body. Your nictating membrane is one.

But the most interesting vestigial part is the only bone
in your body that does not appear to have been assigned
a task. The coccyx begins as four small bones that fuse
into one as you mature. But it has no more use as a solo
act than it did as a quartet. The coccyx is what we
commonly call our "tail bone." It may indeed be the
remnant of the tail we once had, but in our time, it
just sits there.

Now, out of the corner of my eye I've seen you
squirming. Ok: the nictitating membrane is that small
useless fold in the corner of YOUR eye.


[ 04-25-2002, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: gillyharold ]

hey gillyharold

didn't the nictating membrane play any role with the third eyelid that we were reputed to have in days of yore?

also i thought the coccyx performed a very useful role in ...bruising (?) when we fell down !!! (LOL)

[ 04-23-2002, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: allynellie ]

is it true that the fatty lobe hangging of the pinna seems useless? anyway you doctor freaks, what is the boundary between our nose and the upper lip called? where a high way runs up and down linking the lip and the nose? I use to know this but forgotten it, can i have a multiple choice?

Gillyharold!

quote:

---

The coccyx is what we
commonly call our "tail bone." It may indeed be the
remnant of the tail we once had, but in our time, it
just sits there.

---

...it just SITS there...stopping our spines from becoming tails! ..and when it doesn't form properly...we occasionally have babies with tails!

*just a guess*....

This coccyx things of yours is a resemblance fo a cuckoo's beak.. Maybe we gave birth to cockoos during our past era.

thapanut...I think some folks have been "giving birth to cuckoos" during OUR era! I've met enough of them!

My guess is that: The four small bones that fuse into one as you mature is a clear evolutionary process a thinking bone in an active body(a creative one too. Used to plug in tail or electrical appliances or as our former antenna.

*sigh*...sometimes I wish I was BRIGHT, instead of funny...............

Thapanut, that groove between your upper lip and your nose is called the Philtrum.

And my dictionary spells that 'nictitating', not 'nictating'.

cheers monkeycouzin I just got it slightly before your post, but was not sure of the correct spelling. do you happen to know its function?

I think you're probably right, Allynellie. The haw or third eyelid of cats is also called the nictitating membrane.

i thought so tabbytom.

lefois - I think you're bright AND funny, honest !!!!! - see here's piccies of me laughing at your wit and in awe of your knowledge....