Comment on Nails are just vestigial claws.

Contramuffin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• TheTechnician27@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  It also serves to enable very precise grip in a way that a blunt fingertip couldn’t and to protect the fingertip from injury. It definitely isn’t vestigial.

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  • Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I mean… they’re definitely have a function. But they only serve those functions because they’re not proper claws. If w3 actually had claws, we wouldn’t manage such fine manipulation.

    I think that’s more like a happy accident though. I was more thinking about toenails. My late father’s (RIP stubborn bastard) nails definitely were closer to claws than nails.

    And that made me think of elephant toes. Did you know elephants are basically tiptoeing all the time, btw? It just very much doesn’t look like it.

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    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Correct. A vestigial structure however is one that is no longer needed and are greatly diminished but are retained anyway because there’s little selective pressure against it. It need not be completely useless, but fingernails serve multiple legitimately important functions in humans and thus aren’t vestigial.

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      • Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I mean… evolution can “repurpose” things. So the thing it was before isn’t needed and it’s capacity to do what it did is greatly diminished. Ie we couldn’t claw food or earth really even, so our nails would not qualify as claws as much as they once must have been similar to what rodents have.

        I do take your point though, as in “vestigial” referring to an organ or a part of anatomy which hasn’t got a purpose. And nails still serve purposes that claws might as well, like prying open nuts or some such basic stuff.

        But if we discard the manipulation abilities we have on our forelimbs and only consider toenails, what then? Would you consider toenails vestigial claws?

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    • thenextguy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Evolution is nothing but a series of happy accidents. And a graveyard of unhappy ones.

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