"{Stephen Jay} Gould and Yale University paleontologist Elisabeth Vrba devised the term "exaptation" to illuminate the role played by spandrels. Exaptations are spandrels that organisms have adapted for some useful purpose. They were not initially developed by natural selection for their current role, so they are not the same as adaptations, which were. Thus the swiftness of an antelope, which presumably evolved because natural selection weeded out the slower individuals, is an adaptation, while the human ability to read and write would be better described as an exaptation." --Richard Morris, The Evolutionists
"{Stephen Jay} Gould and Yale University paleontologist Elisabeth Vrba devised the term "exaptation" to illuminate the role played by spandrels. Exaptations are spandrels that organisms have adapted for some useful purpose. They were not initially developed by natural selection for their current role, so they are not the same as adaptations, which were. Thus the swiftness of an antelope, which presumably evolved because natural selection weeded out the slower individuals, is an adaptation, while the human ability to read and write would be better described as an exaptation." --Richard Morris, The Evolutionists
The utilization of a structure or feature for a function other than that for which it was developed through natural selection.