Pronghorn

Pronghorns are the second-fastest land animal, sustaining 55 mph over distances that would exhaust any living predator. This extreme endurance speed evolved against American cheetahs, now extinct for 10,000+ years. Modern pronghorns maintain capabilities that nothing in their current environment requires - they're overengineered for today's predators.

This represents evolutionary legacy capability. The threats that shaped pronghorn speed no longer exist, but the capability persists. Relaxing selection pressure hasn't yet reduced their extreme endurance. They carry capabilities optimized for vanished challenges.

The business parallel applies to legacy capabilities maintained after original purpose disappears. Organizations often carry processes, skills, or structures optimized for past competitive environments. Like pronghorn speed, these capabilities may exceed current requirements while imposing maintenance costs. The question becomes whether to preserve for potential future need or shed for efficiency.

Pronghorns also demonstrate that overengineering provides margin. Their excess capability means they never face close calls with current predators. Companies with legacy 'excess' capability similarly may enjoy competitive margins - the capabilities optimized for harder challenges make current challenges trivially easy.