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The general why answer would be as regards evolution - which predicts that cilia have evolved to behave as they do because it is, or has been, advantageous to the survival of an organism, or an ancestor of said organism, over other competing organisms.

I suspect you probably want to know the details of how as opposed to why cilia do their job.

The more subjective why answers would depend on the organism and would tend to refer to evolution also. For example, take the cillia in your wind pipe (trachea) which move in coordination to shift mucus and dirt out of your lungs and down your food pipe (oesophagus) - organisms which have this function would have better blood oxygen levels and be less succeptible to lung related illnesses through having cleaner lungs. Since cillia are found in the tracheas of the vast majority of other animals we can conclude that they evolved in a distant ancestor and provided an advantage to this ancestors survival (the reality is that the cillia we see today probably started at a much lower efficiency, but since higher efficiency cillia will be selected for it is easy to see why they are there today).

I hope this answers your question, because I can't really answer the how question without being vague.

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16y ago

What else can I help you with?