6 ms·
A tail is grabbable. I'd think in primate fighting, a tail would be big negative. It could be grabbed. Can you imagine Chimp fights if they had tails that cou
by FrustratedMonky 3y ago
A tail is grabbable.
I'd think in primate fighting, a tail would be big negative. It could be grabbed.
Can you imagine Chimp fights if they had tails that could be held on to and the owner dragged around.
- moffkalast 3y agoThe problem might be size, lots of smaller primates have tails which can be very useful as a fifth arm for holding onto branches. As you get larger, tree foraging becomes less viable and the tail less useful and it would need to be oversized to be able to function properly.
- vbezhenar 3y agoMost of animals don't use tails as a fifth arm. My cat seems to use it for extra balance. I think that humans could do that as well.
- OJFord 3y agoMost animals are less dexterous than primates anyway. Humans talk about needing (or name products) a third arm/hand; small monkeys and lemurs and the like swing from them or use like you might imagine we would as an extra limb in climbing.
- nineteen999 3y agoMine used to use it to tickle my nostrils and make me sneeze for its own amusement when standing or walking over my lap.
- whycome 3y agoThis seems like one of the times I can mention that dolphins and elephants have evolved prehensile penises. Sometimes nature finds a way.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoAnd tapirs
- amelius 3y agoReplace tail by arm in your comment and see what is wrong about it.
- feisuzhu 3y agoArms are powerful but tails are not.
- freddie_mercury 3y agoCrocodiles disagree.
- dotancohen 3y agoCrocodiles are not primates.
- mkoubaa 3y agoSeriously? Cost benefit. Arms have more benefit but not this cost.
- vbezhenar 3y agoI don't follow. You can grab leg and drag owner around. How's tail different?
- marginalia_nu 3y agoA leg has rigidity due to its endoskeleton, as well as strong muscles with good leverage, which when conditions are right gives it insane strength as it can act as a mechanical lever. Since a tail does not have a rigid endoskeleton, it can not act well as a lever. It's functionally a rope attached to your butt. Like even if you go full kangaroo mode and make the tail more muscular than the legs, making the tail rigid by flexing really hard, it basically turns into an inefficient leg with enormous mechanical disadvantages.
- icegreentea2 3y agoBut the lack of ridigity also means that it's actually quite hard to control someone through it. If you grab someone's leg, especially near the foot/ankle, you are relying on the rigidity of the joints to be able to control their torso (and therefore their ability to fight back). The most disadvantageous position to be in is to have someone behind you, while they fully control your ankle/foot. Now you can't fully turn your body to face your opponent. For a sufficiently flexible tail, that would not be the case. Some could be behind you and control your tail near the tip, and you could still fully turn into your attacker with your torso. This isn't to say that a tail can't become a liability.
- lazide 3y agoWe have two legs, so grabbing one is a good way to get kicked in the face (or elsewhere). A flexible tail doesn’t have that disadvantage to the grabber, especially if longer than a leg.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoYou can’t land a kick when someone has your foot. Gravity exists, you will immediately fall onto your butt as soon as you lift the other leg.
- t-3 3y agoHair is much worse in that regard, as the tail would be positioned too low to practically grab (it would asking for a knee to the face or punches to the back of the head or spine if you tried). I think the driver is more likely to be bipedality. A tail doesn't provide a lot of benefit for balance or rearside whisker utility when moving on two legs, and would interfere with sitting and lying postures. I think humans are probably too large for practical prehensile tails too.
- ohyes 3y ago> I think humans are probably too large for practical prehensile tails too. There’s only one way to find out! Who wants to join my ‘prehensile tails for humans’ (and other great apes with cash) startup? Capitalism, wow!
- thaumasiotes 3y ago> I think the driver is more likely to be bipedality. Given that the tail was lost before the development of bipedality, how could this possibly be the case?
- underlipton 3y ago>and would interfere with sitting and lying postures. I think that assumes that a hypothetical modern human tail would still be attached to the spine. A tail structure attached to the main body only through soft tissues could be flexible enough at the root to not be an issue.
- gus_massa 3y agoThe tail is just the end of the spine. I think it would be extremly difficult to evolve one that is not connected.
- underlipton 3y agoI imagine it would involve taking the one that is connected and evolving one that isn't (slow selection for a smaller connecting vertebra until it becomes vestigial). Floating bones aren't uncommon (you have one in your neck); the real wrench is that it's usually for entirely vestigial limbs, not vestigial portions of functional limbs. But I'm sure life could uh find a way.
- didgetmaster 3y agoThe NFL would definitely have to come up with a rule about grabbing the tail of an opposing player.