ATAVISM

Atavism

Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations before. Atavisms can occur in several ways. One way is when genes for previously existing phenotypical features are preserved in DNA, and these become expressed through a mutation that either knock out the overriding genes for the new traits or make the old traits override the new one. A number of traits can vary as a result of shortening of the fetal development of a trait or by prolongation of the same. In such a case, a shift in the time a trait is allowed to develop before it is fixed can bring ...

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atavism

Noun

  1. The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence.
  2. The recurrence or reversion to a past behaviour, method, characteristic or style after a long period of absence.
  3. Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: atavism
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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