The EXCITING! origin of hiccups

Now known: The EXCITING! origin of hiccups.

I am pleased to report that the cause for hiccups has been figured out by scientists (according to Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin). Hiccups are a remnant of the evolutionary transition from gills to lungs, from fish to amphibian. Imagine a new baby tadpole swimming around in a pond. I is born as a fish-like thing with gills and develops lungs later as it grows. But at one point it has both! Golly, how does that work? This is where hiccups come in. The tadpole swims up to the surface of the water, takes a big gulp of air into its lungs (hic) and then closes it epiglotis, and dives down and resumes breathing with its gills. The repetition of this process is what we experience as hiccups. Turns out all animals can get hiccups and the same part of the brain controls it in all animals. Apparently natural selection never selected it out of our gene pool.