I've heard Human's have tailbones. Which shocks me to hear because I thought Human evolved from a line of the Great Ape family. Which seems the Chimps and Gorillas do not have tails. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just curious to what Humans looked like and what their appearance looked like. Do you think we had tails in the past? If so what happened to them?

[edit on 7-3-2010 by Romantic_Rebel]

We walk upright and our top speed is about 15 mph. We have no need for tails. Don't you think it would kind of get in the way of sitting down?

Well if one subscribes to the lemur family descendant school of thought, then a tail was required.

As the wiki article DeltaChaos mentioned, people do occasionally sprout tails, thanks to little hiccups in the genome. There was an exceptionally weird X-Files episode that dealt with this, if you can find it. I can't recall any plot details, other than it was one of the finer "stand-alone" episodes that didn't deal with the alien/government conspiracy. I, for one, am glad we've long since abandoned unnecessary appendages. In a few million years, perhaps we'll have ditched our pinky toes as well, or at least that irritating little nail that's always so tricky to clip.

There are two basic purposes for tails in animals.

One, as a type of rudder for control in turning for fast moving quadripeds, and two, as a prehensile appendage for climbing, hanging, balance, or even for sitting on.

And that is what a tail is for...

I still have mine because it's been broken twice. Was all the proof I needed. I think you'd have to go back 10's of millions of years to find a human ancestor with a real tail. If I could choose one it would look like a Lemurs, then I think all the girls would want to play with it

Coccyxis a funny word.

And I have a funny story, well, I think so anyway...

A few years ago I lost about 40 pounds in just 3 months (no diet, I was going thru major dental work and also the elevator at work was being redone and I walked up 11 flights of stairs twice a day for 3 months.)

So here I was, skinny as hell, and lovin it. One night I got in the bath, laid flat on my back and found that there was this little knobby thing on my backside that made laying in the tub VERY uncomfortable. I explored that region and became very distressed because it just FELT wrong. Well, I made a doctor appointment and she examined me and said, "it's only your Coccyx and its normal, you never noticed it before because you had a load of backfat" is exactly what she said heheh

I have since gained back 20 pounds and bathing is joyful again

**And to aorAki, your front tail comment was hilarious!

I actually have a few tails to tell about this, but you wom't stand still long enough.

I wanna easter egg

I wanna easter egg

I wanna easter egg

The aspect that catches my attention on darwin's theory is that there are no evolutionary stages between humans and apes. Every being alive today can be traced back to its roots step for step,and stage for stage, but with humans there aren't many stages between actual apes and actual humans.

According to darwin the "chimps" just stood up some day and started walking upright, but doesn't evolution take much longer than that?
As far as you ask me a tail doesn't prove any similarity to apes. We could possibly be evolved petunias with our tailbone standing proof to be the rest of what used to be a root or a stem.

[edit on 8/3/2010 by Pakd-on-mystery]

We are not Monkeys or Apes! we dont live in trees and we never did in the past, so what Creator would want to give us Tails, PS we are not off this World! PPS I wounder why the Master Michelangelo Painted Adam with an Naval? this of course says he came from a natural Birth which means there's a Woman not accounted for, Michelangelo was no fool an he wouldn't paint a naval for no good reason