TheAlphaWolf
Registered Senior Member
But science says we evolved from monkies. You'd think we wouldn't have an appendix any more, but we do.
In short, the appendix isn't TOO bad for us, so there's not a big enough reason for it to disappear. Other traits make a bigger difference.
"But just because the appendix performs no digestive function, this does not mean that it lacks a function. The walls of the appendix are richly endowed with lymphoid tissue, like much of the rest of the intestine. Just like the lymphoid tissue elsewhere, lymphoid tissue of the appendix monitors the passing of food, detecting and responding to harmful foreign materials and potential pathogenic bacteria. In short, the human appendix is part of the immune system."
"Vertebrates: Comparative Anatomy, Function, Evolution," by Keneth V. Kardong, Mc-Graw Hill, 2005, p.523.
Additional info was supplied and relayed from our more up-to-date course lectures. Source: Dr. Kiisa Nishikawa, Department of Biology, Northern Arizona University. I'll ask for the source. More later.
That source goes against what you said about it digesting cellulose ("But just because the appendix performs no digestive function"). And that was in my source wasn't it? lol... But anyway, the way I understand it is that there is lymphatic tissue all over the intestines (and I quote: "like much of the rest of the intestine"), and the appendix just happens to have some. Saying that the appendix itself is useful is like saying that since the ear has blood vessels it is therefore part of the circulatory system and it does serve a function. It just makes no sense.