I've never been confident in the claim that the appendix is a useless vestigial organ. Everything else is doing something, sometimes many somethings at once. Why waste energy growing something useless? Maybe it is a bacteria reservoir?
They discovered that the appendix has evolved independently in several mammal lineages, over 30 separate times, and almost never disappears from a lineage once it has appeared. This suggests that the appendix likely serves an adaptive purpose.
Hmmm. I'd had the impression that the appendix has been considered part of the immune system for a while now.
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