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EnolaGaia

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...
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This new Live Science article raises an interesting "what if" question - what would humans be like with tails?
What if humans had tails?

From mermaids to the ancient Babylonian scorpion people, stories of humans with tails abound in mythologies from around the world. Often, these figures possess some sort of magic power or wisdom beyond mortal understanding.

But what would it be like if humans actually had tails? How would the extra appendage change our daily lives? And what would they look like?

For some people, this is more than a thought experiment; in rare instances, babies with spina bifida — a condition in which a baby is born with a gap in the spine — or an irregular coccyx might be born with a vestigial "pseudotail." These fleshy outgrowths often contain muscle, connective tissue and blood vessels, but not bone or cartilage, according to research published in the journal Human Pathology (opens in new tab). They are not functional and are usually removed shortly after birth. ...

Certain species of monkeys native to South and Central America (dubbed "New World" monkeys, a phrase coined by European colonizers and later picked up by scientists) have prehensile tails — tails that can grasp objects — that can curl around tree limbs and even support their body weight ... But our closest living tailed relatives are the so-called "Old World" monkeys ... , which use their tails mostly for balance. "None of them has a prehensile tail, because that's a step back down in the family tree," Peter Kappeler ... , an evolutionary anthropologist at Göttingen University in Germany, told Live Science.

So our tails probably wouldn't be prehensile. However, Kappeler said, that doesn't necessarily mean they would be useless. A long, furry tail like a macaque's could be useful to wrap around ourselves for warmth, like a built-in scarf. And if we had evolved to hibernate during the winter, our tails could come in handy as a fat-storage system (opens in new tab) (a strategy employed by some non-primate mammals, such as beavers). ...

Looking beyond our primate relatives, "there are other tailed bipeds that we model ourselves after," Jonathan Marks ... , an anthropologist ... , told Live Science. For example, kangaroos sport a robust tail that they use like a tripod, which helps to support their weight and adds power to their bounding stride. Extinct theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, had stiff, muscular tails that may have acted like a rudder when they ran.

However, having a tail like one of these creatures would alter our stride. For example, a T. rex-style tail would force us to lean forward at the hips, holding our chests parallel to the ground rather than upright. A kangaroo tail would be hard to maneuver without hopping — otherwise it would drag annoyingly on the ground. ...

And, Marks noted, it could be difficult to avoid inadvertently hurting our tails while going about our daily lives. ...

Given the human impulse to adorn ourselves, tails could (and likely would) open up a host of new fashion possibilities. The oldest pieces of jewelry date back 100,000 years ... It's easy to imagine our ancestors developing accessories like tail rings, tail warmers, or even tail hairnets alongside baubles like necklaces and earrings. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/what-if-humans-had-tails
 

Herr Cloaca

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Watch this film.

Zoology

Middle-aged zoo worker Natasha still lives with her mother in a small coastal town. As she struggles for independence, she has to endure the absurd reality of her life filled with gossip spread by the women around her. She is stuck and it seems that life has no surprises for her until one day... she grows a tail.
 

MrRING

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There is a film from 1970 that is entitled When Women Had Tails, a cave person fantasy.

I used to work with a guy who wore a faux two-foot long tail to work every day. He was a cartoonist, and an eccentric guy, as you could imagine.

I had a bad cyst on my backside in my 20's, and I wondered if I had a vestigial tail removed at birth, but it turned out it was just a cyct. :(

https://www.webmd.com/baby/what-is-a-human-tail
 

Sollywos

Studying for finals of Grumpy Old Lady degree.
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Hmmmm……so if these human tails would be exposed on the outside of our clothing (rather than being tucked away in our trousers) then that means that we’d be mere inches away from a world of exposed butt holes! I think evolution took the right path!
That was my first thought!!
 

Cochise

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Tails are available, for those who want them. As anyone who has wandered into certain shops to buy some more-than-usually risqué female underwear for a special occasion with the wife will know.

Mind you, buying the underwear is a lot easier than getting the wife to wear it.
 
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Herr Cloaca

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The artist Roger Dean imagined it thus

DeanSkelet&Tail.jpg
 
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Swifty

doesn't negotiate with terriers
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'A man with a tail is captured in this undated photograph. This rare congenital anomaly usually begins to appear after birth or in early childhood. This reportedly causes issues with sitting, wearing clothes, and physical activities.'

atailman.jpg
 

maximus otter

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'A man with a tail is captured in this undated photograph. This rare congenital anomaly usually begins to appear after birth or in early childhood. This reportedly causes issues with sitting, wearing clothes, and physical activities.'

View attachment 60700

Looking at the photo, l don’t imagine that it would have adversely affected his ability to pull.

maximus otter
 

Mythopoeika

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'A man with a tail is captured in this undated photograph. This rare congenital anomaly usually begins to appear after birth or in early childhood. This reportedly causes issues with sitting, wearing clothes, and physical activities.'

View attachment 60700
Aside from the tail, the rest of his anatomy is distinctly 'wrong'. What is going on there?
 

Kondoru

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Something is extremely wrong with his entire bone structure.

Probably part of the tail issue.

If the picture is genuine, he has a record tail. I imagine most tailed folk simply have our natural stubs but outside the skin?
 

EnolaGaia

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There are two types of clinically recognized human tails: vestigial tails and pseudotails.

The tail illustrated in the (apparently) 19th century medical photo above is what's formally labeled a vestigial tail. His is a longer specimen, but it's not unusually long.

All human embryos have tails, which normally disappear circa the 8th week of gestation. In rare cases this embryonic tail does not disappear, and it survives as a feature of the newborn baby.

Vestigial tails do not contain bones, but they do contain blood vessels and nerves. They're basically excess tissue, and they can be readily removed with minor surgery. Presence of a vestigial tail may or may not be associated with other developmental anomalies / deficiencies.

In a variety of even rarer cases there can be a pseudotail, which typically contains extra bones as a sort of extension of the developed spinal column. There are also pseudotails which aren't the residual remnant of the embryonic tail. Pseudotails are more often correlated with other developmental anomalies / deficiencies, and their removal can be a lot more complicated than is the case for vestigial tails.

Photos of actual vestigial / pseudo- tail case can be readily found with an image search.

See, for example:

https://www.webmd.com/baby/what-is-a-human-tail
https://www.healthline.com/health/vestigial-tail
 

eburacum

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I expect that having a fully operational prehensile tail would be an advantage in microgravity environments.

Outer space is a much larger volume than the available, habitable surface of planets, so in a few millennia there may be far more people living in zero-gee than on Earth. Some, many, or most individuals living in microgravity might choose to be modified so as to possess tails, so it could be the default condition in due course. Your own descendants might choose to live in space, and have a tail.
 

maximus otter

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A baby girl was born with a 6 cm tail – and it kept growing


A baby girl was born with a tail covered in skin and hair that was 5.7 centimeters long. Her birth stunned doctors at the rural Mexican hospital who delivered her via C-section with no discernable health problems or abnormalities – apart from a tail containing muscles and nerves.

The baby had seemingly no history of exposure to any infections or radiation and both its parents were healthy, as noted in the case details published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery.

The baby's tail measured 5.7 centimeters in length and was 3-5 millimeters in diameter. The hair and skin-covered tail contained nerves and the baby would cry when it was pierced with a needle.

After an X-ray of her lower back, it was found that there weren't any bones or other abnormalities in the tail. This means that the tail isn't vestigial, a useless organ like an appendix. Rather, this was a "true tail."

The doctors checked for several possible medical issues, including in the brain and spine. Then, two months later, they came back again and re-examined the baby and her tail, where they determined it had grown in proportion to her own growth.

With that in mind, the doctors decided to remove the tail and reconstruct the area with plastic surgery.

In the end, the baby was allowed to go back home and she has been free of any issues and complications since.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/pregnancy-and-birth/article-731581

maximus otter
 

escargot

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Little children believe they have a tail. Test it: ask a toddler aged up to two-and-a-half where their nose is, their elbow, their toes, and they will proudly point to the right areas. If you then ask where their tail is, they will point behind them.
 
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