Some time ago, we told you about the nineteenth-century paleontologist Louis Dollo, who proposed a law that has become a cornerstone of evolutionary belief. Dollo’s law says that a structure or organ lost during the course of evolution would not reappear in that organism. In other words, evolution never shifts into reverse.
Louis Dollo supervising the mounting of an Iguanodon skeletonBut even a recent issue of Smithsonian Magazine points out that Dollo’s law has been broken again and again. For instance, it mentions a tree frog from South America that lost its lower teeth only to re-evolve them after 200 million years.
Apparently, Dollo’s law has now been broken yet again. According to a recent study of the wrists of modern birds, a bone lost from dinosaurs for tens of millions of years reappeared when dinosaurs evolved into birds and took flight.
But wait! According to Dollo’s law, evolution never goes backward.
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