Continuing the "Subspecies" thread...

[John Grehan]

>I was born without even the rudiments of wisdom teeth in my lower jaw,
>though I had wisdom teeth in my upper jaw (!)  Does this make me "further
>evolved" than the rest of the population?!
>
>Mary Beth Prondzinski

Perhaps it does! If this were an expression of an orthogenetic trend 
involving loss of teeth (perhaps correlated with other orthogenetic changes 
in jaw and skull) then those individuals with the loss are more 'derived' 
individuals. Such a process may also be responsible for much of what we see 
in the morphology and adaptations in Lepidoptera including such obvious 
changes as loss of mouthparts in some families, and reduction or loss of 
locomotory function in the legs of some moths and butterflies - in fact 
perhaps for every major structure change in organsims.
(I know this is not orthodox, but Darwin also allowed for this kind of 
evolutionary mechanism so I'm not that far out there).

John Grehan


 
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