Tails are part of the evolutionary package for many mammals. For dogs and cats, tails help provide balance and offer an additional means of communication. When we speak to kids about pets, we talk about “reading” a pet's tail.
They provide a source of locomotion for fish and some other forms of marine life. Many land animals use their tails to brush away flies and other biting insects. Most canines use their tails to comunicate mood and intention.
The tail helps the dog maintain his balance by putting its weight on the opposite side of the dog's tilt, much like a tightrope walker uses the balance bar to stay on the tightrope. Dogs that enjoy climbing various surfaces will use their tails to balance on uneven footing, such as rocks or trees.
No, tails have no purpose in modern humans today.
Humans do have a tail, but it's for only a brief period during our embryonic development. It's most pronounced at around day 31 to 35 of gestation and then it regresses into the four or five fused vertebrae becoming our coccyx. In rare cases, the regression is incomplete and usually surgically removed at birth.
Indian plantation worker Chandre Oram showed a tail measuring 33 cm (1 ft 1 in) in length to the world's media in 2008. Other notable cases include a 12-year-old boy in French Indochina who was said to have sported a 22.8-cm (9-in) tail.
Unlike the tail of other vertebrates, human tails do not contain vertebral structures. Only one case has been reported with vertebra in human tail. [6] A true tail is easily removed surgically, without residual effects.
One of the most striking is the existence of the rare 'true human tail'. It is a rare event with fewer than 40 cases reported in the literature. The authors report a case of an infant born with the true tail. A 3-month-old baby girl, presented with an 11 cm long tail, which was successfully surgically removed.
Growing a true human tail is extremely rare. Sometimes, when babies are born, their parents might think they have a true tail when actually they don't. This is called a pseudotail. Pseudotails are usually a symptom of an irregular coccyx or of spina bifida as opposed to a remnant of the embryonic tail from the womb.
Much later, when they evolved into primates, their tails helped them stay balanced as they raced from branch to branch through Eocene jungles. But then, roughly 25 million years ago, the tails disappeared. Charles Darwin first recognized this change in our ancient anatomy.
The tail is also filled with nerves and tendons that allow your dog to feel their tail. If you have ever accidentally stepped on your dog's tail, they will cry out and wince in pain because their tails have nerves and this will give them the sensation of pain if it is hurt of injured.
Tail pull injuries can cause damage to nerves higher up in the spinal cord that control urination and defecation. If the nerves that control urination and defecation are injured, your dog may become incontinent. With time, nerve function may return; however, some dogs remain unable to control their bladder or bowels.
Tails can be very important in communicating, moving, and many other things, but dogs do not necessarily need tails to survive. Some dog breeds, like corgis, do not even have tails but they can communicate and live completely normal lives.
Dogs are able to control the movements of their tails. But, most movements are more instinctual. But they are aware they are doing it. But the actual tail wagging is usually done without them thinking about it at first if that makes sense.
Sports and hand-to-hand combat would be dramatically different. Approaching someone from behind would be taboo. In addition to the regular vulnerabilities, there is the added danger of someone being able to grab the tail and deliver serious pain and harm by disjointing it. It would be similar to having a finger broken.
Purpose. Historically, tail docking was thought to prevent rabies, strengthen the back, increase the animal's speed, and prevent injuries when ratting, fighting, and baiting. Tail docking is done in modern times either for prophylactic, therapeutic, cosmetic purposes, and/or to prevent injury.
ADAM1 was the first man. There are two stories of his creation. The first tells that God created man in his image, male and female together (Genesis 1: 27), and Adam is not named in this version.
Recently, researchers uncovered a genetic clue about why humans have no tails. They identified a so-called jumping gene related to tail growth that may have leaped into a different location in the genome of a primate species millions of years ago. And in doing so, it created a mutation that took our tails away.
Humans are pretty unusual in having sex throughout the year rather than saving it for a specific mating season. Most animals time their reproductive season so that young are born or hatch when there is more food available and the weather isn't so harsh. There are exceptions, though.
Around 25 million years ago, our ancestors lost their tails. Now geneticists may have found the exact mutation that prevents apes like us growing tails – and if they are right, this loss happened suddenly rather than tails gradually shrinking.
The “tree man” has an extremely rare genetic defect that, after exposure to the human papillomavirus (HPV), causes his skin to produce massive amounts of cutaneous horns.
Most birds, mammals, reptiles, and even fish have tails. But humans and other apes don't, even though our close primate relatives do.
Genetic studies have demonstrated that humans are still evolving. To investigate which genes are undergoing natural selection, researchers looked into the data produced by the International HapMap Project and the 1000 Genomes Project.
A true human tail is remnant of the one most babies grow in the womb, before it is reabsorbed into the body, forming the tailbone.